I had just reached the railway station and was
waiting for my train to arrive as I had to travel to
Jaipur in a family function of my friend. When I
asked the Train Enquiry Department, they told me
that the train will arrive at 9.00 pm, which meant
I had to wait for an extra hour. So I tried to pass
my time by having a look at the station and the
things happening there.
Since it was a small station, there were very few
passengers. I saw a group of boys playing with
the pebbles. The boys were all dressed up quite
pathetically as their clothes were very dirty and
torn. But still they were quite happy with the
pebbles and were enjoying to the fullest.
Suddenly I developed an urge to drink tea as it
was a cold evening,but to my misfortune, I
couldn’t find any tea vendors on the very station.
The only tea vendor was sitting outside the
station and I couldn’t take the risk of leaving all
my luggage on the station just to drink the tea. I
called one of the boys from the guys and asked
him to bring me a cup of tea by handing him a
coin of 5 rupees. He agreed and went to bring me
the tea.
Time passed and after half an hour,I heard the
announcement which said that my train would be
arriving in a couple of minutes. Now I was sure
that the child ran away with the money and
cursed myself for trusting a ROADSIDE Boy. I
stood up to pick my luggage as the train arrived.
I was just about to enter the coach when I heard
a voice which said ‘Babuji, Apki chai’ (translates
to ‘Sir, your tea’)
Surprised with the voice, I looked back and asked
him,Why did he bring the tea so late?
He told me, he lost the 5 rupees coin and so he
had to clean the utensils of the tea vendor, to
bring me a cup of tea!!
– Saurabh Srivastava (on Quora)
(Representational Image)
