From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedantam.

This is my unsung hero, stories where one person reached out to help another in a time of need.

My unsung hero is the kind stranger who helped me get to my grandfather's funeral.

And he just says, today, you, tomorrow me.

And I never saw.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for changing my life.

Today's story comes from Surinder Gupta.

In 1974, Surinder moved to New Orleans to attend medical school.

He came with his wife Shashi and their baby son, Shameder.

About 10 years earlier, when Surinder had immigrated to the U.S. from India,

he had become part of the Indian community in Baton Rouge.

It was like a family.

But here, he felt alone. One winter night, his son got very sick,

and around 3 a.m., the family piled into the car to get some medicine from Walgreens.

When they left the store, they were horrified to discover that their car was gone. Not knowing

what else to do, Surinder found a phone book.

And started going through some Indian surnames

so that I could call somebody

said they might be able to come and help me out.

And I started looking at names called Singh and Walia

and all of the common names from the state of

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