Maturity Has No Age

This is a small incident which I and my mother experienced while travelling from C.S.T to Wadala and I would like to share it with all of you.
One day, I and my mother, were travelling in the second class compartment of the local train. We had already got a place to sit and thankfully the train was not at all crowded as it usually is during rush hours. We boarded the train from C.S.T and had to get down at Wadala. 

We were just chit-chatting when two small kids got into the compartment. One kid looked like he was from a upper middle class family in a neat school uniform, clean school shoes, neatly combed hair and a cool school bag whereas the other small boy who looked younger than the other boy, was dressed in a little shabby school uniform fitting in his thin and lanky structure, rubber slippers, oiled hair and a tattered school bag on his little shoulders.

The well dressed boy was standing in the corridor of the train and jumping around here and there whereas the other small boy who was shabbily dressed came and sat beside my mother. After sometime, the little boy beside my mother started drowsing and again sat upright trying not to doze off.

My mother felt very bad for the poor little kid and asked him, “What happened child, you are feeling sleepy? Tired of attending lectures in school? Which standard are you in?”

To that the child replied, “No aunty, nothing like that. I love to attend school. I am in the 5th standard and I study in the municipality school. This other boy with me is in the 6th standard and he studies in a very good school nearby my school. My father is a labourer, who works at construction sites and my mother is a house maid. She does house chores of washing utensils, clothes, mopping and cleaning to earn a living.

My father doesn’t have a steady income and my mother works hard to earn a living. My mother has told me that I have grown up now and I must also help the family in some way or the other to earn a living. I stay in a hutment and there are many such hutments around my house. We get water in our locality from 12.30 am in the night to 5.30 am in the morning. After that we don’t have water for the entire day. People usually fill and store the water to utilize it for the entire day but they have to sit over night to do that work. So I do that work for them. I sit over night from 12.30am to 5.30am in the morning and fill water in buckets and other storage containers in many houses. 

I get paid 50 rupees per month for each house. Like that, I fill water for nearly 30 houses every night. Also, this boy with me is the son of a person where my mother works as a house maid. I

drop him to his school and pick him up everyday as his school is near to mine and the timings are also the same. His mother pays me 200 rupees a month. In this way I help my parents in a small way. I didn’t get proper sleep yesterday night that’s why I was dozing off”

My mother asked, “So when do you study and do your home work? When do you sleep?” The little boy replied, “I sleep after morning 5.30am till about 8.00 am. My school timings are from 9 am to 2 pm so I go home and sleep for 2-3 hours and I finish my homework and studies after that. My mother feels bad for me because I get tired but I told her that my school teacher says fruits of hard work are always sweet.” 

Hearing this all the people sitting around us were dumbstruck. We all were astounded looking at the maturity and sense of responsibility of a 5th grade boy. Our hearts melted.

My mother gave him 2 oranges from her bag which she carried for us to eat and some people who were sitting around us gave him some money.

Looking at this, the boy panicked saying, “Areeeyyy… No!!! I don’t want money! My mother will beat me up and think that I might have begged in the train. She will ask me from where all this money came and also my dad will get angry on me! I don’t want any money or anything please. My mother has told me, no matter whatever the situation, we will never beg but will earn money only through efforts and hard work. Please I don’t want any money.” Saying so, he did not even touch the money which the ladies were giving him but since my mom insisted that he must take the oranges, he took them with a big smile and saying thank you got down at Sewri along with the other kid.

That boy left a permanent memory in my heart. He was only 10 years old and yet so much maturity! So much understanding and so much of a sense of responsibility!

Someone has truly said maturity is a high price to pay for growing up. Maturity has no age. In some people, maturity comes because of consequences. Some people are given sermons for many years by teachers, parents, loved ones to be matured and still they don’t develop it but for some people, life itself creates certain situations which make them matured at a very young age. Just like this small boy. 

Indeed, such small incidents teach us so many different things and we truly learn so much from them.