Woman's response to viral photo of her inspires the world and gets sincere apology from uploader

October 3, 2012

A Sikh woman's picture was taken by a nearby observer and posted online to get laughs and ridicule without her knowledge. You might be thinking, "well, this happens every day". Just take a look at the website peopleofwalmart.com.

The reaction and ending to this story is what makes it special and proves that one person CAN make the world a better place.

The woman in the picture is Balpreet Kaur, a student at Ohio State University and an observant Sikh. Her religion does not believe in shaving facial hair.

A friend at the University showed Kaur the picture, and with a few words, she inspired the world.

"When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away," Kaur wrote. "However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can."

Internet users everywhere read her statement and began to realize something they often forget...she is right. The replies began pouring in.

"I had tears in my eyes, reading this post," wrote a Reddit user named 'singhza'. "Balpreet you are an inspiration to everyone and esp the Sikh youth who think they are a misfit in the society if they conform to our religious symbols."

"Things like this restore my faith in humanity..," commented Huffington Post user Jax328. "kudos to both Balpreet and the poster....you are examples of want we are supposed to be...you can make a mistake...but when faced with the truth a person can change course and correct that mistake and having the courage to admit it is even better."

"This was a brilliant example of how to deal with the superficiality of the world. Rather than feeling badly about herself, her enlightened, courageous response made him look at HIMSELF differently. That was karmic justice, if ever there was such a thing! Well done, Ms. Kaur!" - a comment from Huffington Post user 'dclintn648'.

And here is the response from the user who posted the picture. Enjoy.

I know that this post ISN'T a funny post but I felt the need to apologize to the Sikhs, Balpreet, and anyone else I offended when I posted that picture. Put simply it was stupid. Making fun of people is funny to some but incredibly degrading to the people you're making fun of. It was an incredibly rude, judgmental, and ignorant thing to post.

/r/Funny wasn't the proper place to post this. Maybe /r/racism or /r/douchebagsofreddit or /r/intolerance would have been more appropriate. Reddit shouldn't be about putting people down, but a group of people sending cool, interesting, or funny things. Reddit's been in the news alot lately about a lot of cool things we've done, like a freaking AMA by the president. I'm sorry for being the part of reddit that is intolerant and douchebaggy. This isn't 4chan, or 9gag, or some other stupid website where people post things like I did. It's fucking reddit. Where some pretty amazing stuff has happened.

I've read more about the Sikh faith and it was actually really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense to work on having a legacy and not worrying about what you look like. I made that post for stupid internet points and I was ignorant.

So reddit I'm sorry for being an asshole and for giving you negative publicity.
Balpreet, I'm sorry for being a closed minded individual. You are a much better person than I am
Sikhs, I'm sorry for insulting your culture and way of life.
Balpreet's faith in what she believes is astounding.