The Pleasant Surprise That Comes With An Unexpected Encounter with Niceness!

What is it about urban city-life that has made people brand it "cold"? Is it the fact that no-one has that minuscule piece of time it takes to simply smile at someone? Or do people genuinely not care?
The other day, the surprising sweetness of a random stranger absolutely made my day. Me and my friend were at Pondi Bazaar looking for the perfect gift for a mutual friend who was leaving. We decided on this huge stuffed teddy bear that the mutual friend would absolutely adore (she's a sucker for the cute stuff). The price, when we asked, was about Rs. 1500. My friend, always up for a bargain, went all out and demanded the teddy for Rs. 600. We had Rs. 1250 together and had a lot more on our shopping list. The shopkeeper, quite a nice person, set the ultimatum at Rs. 1000. As with all good bargaining of course, there was conversation. Out strategy was to plead that we were "innocent little school girls," and hence, deserved a big discount. This other man, who was standing beside us, was listening in on the conversation. He commented that his daughter was in the same school we were studying in. We smiled politely and turned our attention back to the shopkeeper. We'd loosened up and now were pleading for the bear at Rs. 800. The shopkeeper was almost giving in. We strengthened our resolve and badgered him further. He kept saying that he was much tougher than this, but he was only being nice because we were in school. Then, the man who was standing next to us, chipped in and told the shopkeeper (with whom he was on first-name terms), to just give it to us at 800 bucks. He offered to pay the extra Rs. 150.
As usual, I did not catch this exchange, as I was busy mentally congratulating myself for my awesome bargaining ability. My friend though, did, and profusely thanked him. She told me about it in the car, where we were admiring our bounty.I was absolutely filled with awe at the sweetness of it all. It completely restored my faith in humanity!