Last night as my husband, Aditya and I ate our dinner, my 3 year old son, Neev joined us at the table. He carried his dumper truck and was piling his toys on it and trying to drive the truck. A carrot, a tomato, a tangerine and a fried egg all fought for space on his tiny truck.

He was engrossed with his game and we, in our conversation but our chat was punctuated with the sound of the spherical tomato falling off the truck and bouncing off the table. We observed that his attempt in trying to accommodate all his toys would result in the fruit falling to the ground and rolling to unreachable places. Sometimes it landed under a sofa and sometimes as far as our bedroom where it lodged itself under our bed. Not one to give up Neev asked for the flashlight and went to retrieve it with focused attention. He came padding back to the table and hauled himself up again on the chair to continue his experiment.

The entire exercise was repeated nearly four or five times and finally Aditya explained to Neev that it won’t fit. Neev heard him out but barely glanced up from his passion project as he tried various combinations in stacking them in the right order. Aditya and I were bemused and continued eating. Suddenly we noticed that he was driving the truck with all his “goods” stored firmly at the back. In a gentle, accepting voice Neev said “look it fits”! He was neither gloating nor boasting.

Aditya congratulated him and told him to keep trying till he succeeds. I patted him on the back and told Neev to always trust his instincts. But as Aditya and I exchanged a knowing look we realized that it was us who had been served an important lesson.