Oh yeah.. you can see them.. !!

This little episode happened when Pranav was about 4 years old.. and this one is my dearest one :), I consider it as my first big shock or rather sweet surprise..

My apartment's main door opens into a common corridor of the building facing the street and there is a railway track parallel to, and one street apart from, our street. On an average at least two trains pass on it every hour and we can watch them going, standing at the main door .. Pranav used to love watching them... every time he heard the train horn he would quickly get a small step-up stool , stand on it and watch it go until it went out of sight.. and he wouldn't want to be disturbed until it was gone.. he started this routine since the day we moved in here and Pranav was 3 1/2 years old then.. I used to wonder what was he observing every time.. ?! I mean, it is just the train moving from left to right or right to left in our sight...

One day it was about 8:00 in the night and it was dark outside, we both were sitting in the drawing room and talking and there was train horn.. and yeah he quickly ran and grabbed the step-up stool put it near the main door, got himself on it and started looking at the train.. and it was really dark outside and he appeared straining to look at the train, I mean he wasn't able to see it.. then casually I said.. "naannaa, baiTa cheekaTigaa undi kadaa, train kanapaDadulE ippuDu" (meaning, " its dark outside, so you can not see the train now") in a fraction of second he turned towards me and said in a cool steady tone.. "kanapaDutundi, train lO lights unTE kanapaDutundi, ippuDu veLLEdi goods train andukani kanapaDaTlEdu, manushulu veLLE train ayitE train lO lights unTaayi, kanipistundi".. (meaning, "yes you can see if the train has lights inside it, the one going now is a goods train so I am not able to see it, if it were a passenger train I could have seen it")... I was just speechless and astonished with the confidence in his tone.. I mean he was so sure and was not expecting any endorsement from me.. :) and I did not expect him to know this as he was just 4 years old.. and he told me many things about trains that night, like
trains can be of green, blue and brown colors...
green color trains are short ones (they are local trains in our area :) )
blue color trains are longer ones
green and blue trains have people in them
brown color trains are very long, do not have people in it, they are goods trains and they do not have lights in them
brown color trains move slowly and I can watch them for longer time.. :)

and all of them noted only through his observation and he never used to talk when the train passes by and wouldn't like to be disturbed at all..

Kids are fresh, pure and are open minded and can take any information in its purest form with no tags attached.. :) We as adults tend to loose this openly accepting nature as we confine our thinking bounded by various information pieces that we know.. some times overly applying logic/ knowledge becomes hurdle for us to think out of the box and to keep simple things simple..

Keen observation skill is what all of us are born with I guess .. I mean kids have it so much and we don't have it a lot when compared to them.. and I understood that is why it is said, kids learn from 'what you do' not from 'what you say'.. and we need to be cautious when we are around them to set a right example.. all elders need to think about this when we are around our kids..