Cute cars are'nt they ? They are 23 years old now.These were gifted to me and my brother by Rail maama, a neighbour whose acquaintance we gained during one of our train journeys from Delhi to Chennai. Hence the name.
Couple of weeks back these became hand-me-downs to Vidush.
He enjoys playing with them even though keying them does not result in any movement.
Today I decided to fix that. As I took them upstairs and opened them up with a screw driver, childhood memories came rushing back. The numerous hours spent playing with these cars - setting up elaborate tracks with cardboard boxes and textbooks and watching the cars flying off or toppling over.
Rail maama was the one who introduced us to the world of eggs. For orthodox Hindu brahmins this would be blasphemous. But he himself was an iyeangar and did'nt seem to care a bit. We were too young to know. So one afternoon when we were at his place, he started beating the eggs in a glass and quickly prepared an omlette. He then toasted couple of breads and prepared a sandwich. Some ketchup was added and offered on a nice place. We started reluctantly but finished off the sandwich in no time. There was an implicit agreement of not discussing this act with our parents.
Back to the cars. After the covers came off, I noticed that springs inside were all rusty - not a surprising thing to discover after 2o odd years of unuse. The chasis was dirty as well. After cleaning the covers with detergent water and overhauling the mechanical systems with some seasame oil the cars were back in action.
Initially Vidush did'nt seem very excited to see the cars actually moving now. After a couple of runs when he noticed the wayward trails the cars were taking, he seemed to take a liking and kept throwing the cars back to me to key them back again.
Thank you Rail maama - for the cars and the eggs.
