One tight slap

Poonam and Sakshi, 9th class students, were the best of friends.
Then they fell out.
Yet, they would travel together from their home in Jogeshwari to school in Andheri – and back – every day.
Walk, take the train, walk, side by side. But no talk.
One morning, Poonam was standing as usual on the footboard when her school bag fell out of the train.
When the train stopped at Andheri, she spoke to Sakshi for the first time in months: “My school bag fell on the tracks. Will you come with me to fetch it?”
The train had run over the bag, neatly slicing it and the books in two.
In school, the girls went straight to their class teacher Avdesh Tiwari and reported the incident to him.
Tiwari heard them out and gave Poonam… one tight slap!
“I am slapping you not because your books have been destroyed. I am slapping you because you walked back on the rail tracks to retrieve your bag. What if a train had come just then and run over you?”
Poonam took the slap – and her class teacher’s words – in the right spirit.
“From that day onwards, I never stood on the footboard of any train,” she says.