Unspoken Words...

It was almost 11:00 A. M. August 5th, 2008. I was on my way to office. I caught last Barrackpore local from Barrackpore station and sat beside the window. All of a sudden I found a boy of 6 to 7 years old, shouting to one of his friend coming towards the train. Both of them are from Barrackpore Ramakrishna Mission. The first one is in class 1 and other one is in class 3. Every day they travel by that train and also in that compartment.

After they settled with their sitting arrangement a little chat caught my attention further. One of them was showing marks he obtained to their guardian. I saw the notebook; it was something like he got 82, 84, 87... ... ... but he was telling that he got above 40 within 50. I amazed! What is going on then? He clarified that he used two different languages to note down his marks? The first one was in Bengali digit (4) and then English digits. His explanation in this context was "The first one I write by mistake then do not change subsequent ones to make it consistent" Nice logic.

In the meantime the train started. They were eagerly waiting, specifically the junior one, for their uncle (probably they meet him in this train only). Uncle join from the very next station. I could see the happiness in his expression when he saw that the uncle came and sat just beside him. Their demand is so little and joy is so high. I can remember my sheer happiness when I draw a cow with my pencil, when I got a story book as a prize for standing in my class, when I bind my new books. Today the things are quite different; by the rules of nature, I am not that cute boy any more. By the rule of nature, my interest changed. Though I understand that nothing I can do if something gone differently as per my expectation, still I expect. I could not believe that though I have more than I need I am not happy any more. Probably how less your expectation, is the parameter of the happiness. Any way those were boring thoughts that came into my mind in that time.

These two kids were playing different games. Very interestingly those games were quite knowledge sharing type. They must be very good student and quite intelligent too. They have their own world, their own topics for discussion. Their sweet conversation, their attitude, I could not resist to switch off my mp3 player. I looked through the window and I was totally surprised by the fact that their destination had already arrived. It was almost 40 minutes. They had to go now! When they approach to the exit of the train a simple smile towards me; probably just trying to say - Do you know me? I am you 16 years back.