Tuesday, January 23, 2007

A train tale

I love trains and I love train travel. I have stayed close to the railway tracks for most part of my life. My home, my college where I graduated, my present college, all are adjacent to the railway track, each one closer than the previous.

This is about a short trip to Kolkata, last month. I took a train to Howrah. Much of the journey was eventless except for an 11 or 12 year old ragamuffin ragpicker kid who entered the compartment at Bhubaneswar train station. His agility and keen observation immediately caught my attention. He went under the seats and in no time extracts 12 empty plastic water bottles. He realises that 12 bottles are too many for him to carry out, all in one strech. He reflects for a moment and then goes back hunting under the seats. Curious to see what he was upto this time, I strained my neck and in a few moments, he magically produces a plastic cover from beneath one of the seats! Cool- but he figures out that he can't fit 12 bottles in one plastic cover. Ah-bad luck I thought.

A minute later, I decided to check on the boy. Much to my surprise he had torn one side of the plastic cover into one single plastic sheet. He was busy uncorking the bottle's cap, putting the plastic in between and re-corking the cap. Soon, he was done with all 12 bottles, picks the plastic sheet to which all the 12 bottles are now attached, puts it on his shoulder and walks off.

That is something that I wouldn't have thought of in a million years. The mind of a child!

3 comments:

Jas B said...

Very ingenious and resourceful, eh!

Chica, Cienna, and Cali said...

awesome!!! :) what do they say abt necessity being the mother of invention!!!
and i too love trains and train travel......infact this time we travelled from Lko to Calcutta by train in a big group and it was such cool fun!!! and yeah SIT was close to rail tracks too..have been there with arka on our evening trips :DDDDD

Sarad said...

Jas: Very ingenious indeed.

Moi: Traveling in large groups is real fun.