Koooooo, Chuk, Chuk, Chuk…

Not far away from where I stay, a high and residential complex was fast taking shape.

Few months since the ground breaking, the skyscraper was already starting to look majestic.

Little did it do to hide the shanty sheds underneath it. 

There were about fifteen makeshift sheds, where the daily wage workers stayed along with their families. While the labourer parents were out working dawn to dusk, it was playtime for the children. Almost all of them were aged below 10, the smallest was probably about 4 years old.

Koooooooooo chuk chuk chuk …

It was their favourite game. They stood in a queue holding to the shirt of the person just in front of them.

The one that stood right at the front was the engine.

He had the privilege to ‘kick start’ the engine – “Kooooooo...”

And the others followed – “ Chuk chuk chuk …”

They ran around the building.

The engine kid at the front and all the bogies following.

Each of them took turns to lead the pack, to be the engine.

It was a matter of privilege: of achievements, of victory, of leading from the front. To be, the engine.

Koooooooo chuk chuk chuk

 

The voice echoed in the empty basement as the children ran around in circles.

Amongst all this, there was something that perplexed me.

This one kid, who seemed, to be equally enjoying ‘the train game’, though I never saw him become the train engine or even its bogies. Ever.

He stood aside and kept waving a small torn piece of green cloth.

He was the station master.

Yesterday, Today, Everyday – All the days, that I witnessed them play, he was always the Station Master.

On that day, curiosity got the better of me, I went and enquired,

“Dosth aap kabhi dabbi ya engine kyon nahin bante?” (Why don’t you become the engine or the bogie?)

I could sense the dampness in his eyes momentarily.

“Jab mere pass kameej hogi, tab mein bhi banoonga.” (When I own a shirt, I will also become one)

His words hit me real hard.

A few seconds passed by, I did not know what to say, or how to react.

The kid was back to his playful best.

The wetness in his eyes was long gone and that lively spark of being the station master returned.

Kooooooooo ...chuk chuk chuk 

The kids ran around me.

I smiled, I still do not know how I managed to get one.

With great difficulty, I managed to gulp the saliva and got out of the scene.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

It left me thinking.

Things that I always took for granted, were something that many out there probably could not even afford. Probably never at all.

Instead of cribbing over what the child did not have, he opted to be happy, with whatever he had.

For all the other kids, the train and the engine was their world of happiness.

For this kid, being the station master was his world of happiness.

He did not care to compare the train with the station master.

He was happy genuinely.

In retrospect, we crib for pretty much everything ...for not getting the desired toy, on not seeing the first-day first show of my favourite actor’s movie, or not getting to go to a shopping mall like my other friends or not owning a car …Gosh!!! that list is so damn long ...

Ain’t it?

Goals and ambition are important in one’s life. No doubt.

However, they cannot be pursued at the cost of one basic ingredient. Happiness.

What is the use of owing it all?

…Of being ahead in the race all the time?

...Of being No.1?

...Of being famous?

…Of…?

…If one is simply not content and hence not happy with oneself.

Are we all the time in the race to be the engine?

Or is it ok, at times, to simply pause and just be the station master?

Or just be the station.

Or just BE.

You decide.

You always get to decide.

You always had that choice.

You always have that choice.

It is your life.

Kooooooooooo chuk, chuk,chuk...