Last year I took one of the "Thomas the tank engine" toys - train, engine driver, rail-tracks, station and passengers-all in a box, for my 4 year old cousin, A. His face beamed when I gave it to him and before we settled down at mama-mami's place, he had the whole package unpacked. Incidently, the train I took was mechanical and had to be pushed by hand at least onto the flyover after which it went on by itself due to inertia. I had not realised that during the buy. After playing with it for a while, his interest began to dampen. He probably would have liked it more if the toy did everything by itself and he only had to watch it like a spectator. This was work! Seeing his spirits dampened, I thought I would pep him up a bit. So I went up to him and said, "Arj.., next time I'll get you one with batteries, ok? What say?". He looked at me and then thought a little and said, "Tab toh remote wali laana" (In that case, get one with remote).
