JOYCE SHAMINI RAJENDRAN

First Prize, Write Away Contest

“A random act of kindness, a message of hope perhaps! I don’t know how much these handouts
would mean but it’s the least I can do, for now,” I told myself as I packed more hotel toiletries,
clothes and snacks into the thirty woven bags which I had rounded up from my friends and family
members. This is Project Care Pack.

In the last seven months of walking through Chinatown, I saw enough of blanket-sized rags by the
pavements, cast-away cardboard shelters under flyovers, and soiled bodies of homeless persons as
I made my way by foot along Jalan Pudu to the office building I was interning at. At first, these
sights seemed to trigger a sort of a kneejerk response in me; I’d automatically look away as if I saw
something that I shouldn’t be looking at. Perhaps I was shocked by the visceral vulnerability of men
and women barely clothed, exposed and subjected to the harsh elements of both the environment
and society’s neglect, right here in the midst of a city of affluence and excess! I couldn’t understand.

Over time, as my mind and eyes adjusted to these incongruous scenes, I rallied the strength to look
a little closer - to take in the festering wounds, the whitish glaze across the eyes of the malnourished
and drug dependent, and the senseless ramblings that many of them would launch into in their
mentally distraught states. It was uncomfortable and painful, but I felt within myself a growing
seed of empathy and compassion. By the sixth month or so, an idea bloomed in my mind: “Before
I leave this place to resume my university studies, I must reach out.”

The day finally came. With my sister as the ‘eyes’ on the front passenger seat and my friend driving
the car as the ‘feet’ of our mission, I became the ‘hands’. We drove slowly along the vicinity of
Jalan Pudu one Friday afternoon, eyes peeled for the homeless. Upon chancing one, I would hop
out and hand out the care pack filled with mostly daily necessities. I also threw in a note with the
hotline of an NGO working with the KL’s homeless, hoping that it would be a useful lifeline should
the need arose. There was no overwhelming moment of emotional exchange or warm fuzzy feelings
of charity. I knew I was merely striking a matchstick in a huge cave, almost lightless against the cold
and darkness of their day to day existence.

Interestingly, a lot of my advances were met with some form of hostility. A lady with her child
begging at a mosque intercepted me at one point and demanded for another care pack. I told her
apologetically that I didn’t have many to go around with, to which she retorted something rude
before retreating. A shirtless man, reeking of stale liqueur and the sour stench of clothes worn for
days, woke up from his slumber by the roadside and snarled at me, before proceeding to ransack
the care pack I laid by his side.

It has been years since my little excursion into the world of the marginalised and vulnerable, but
the experience continues to haunt me. So much more can be done and needs to be done! I don’t
look away when I see the homeless anymore. Sometimes I’d buy a meal for beggars I pass by, or
hand out care packs that I still always have on standby in my car boot. These random acts of
kindness have become far more intentional and consistent. If you’re tired of looking away or
making commentaries on the failures of modern society, why not practise empathy instead? Put
together some simple care packs for the homeless and keep them in your car. You will first catch
yourself paying closer attention to the needy, and before you know it, you’d have a fountain of
compassion flowing within.