J – JCB

Yes you read it right, the theme for today’s post is JCB. JCB actually stands for J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited, a company which manufactures heavy construction and other related equipment. However the topic of my post are the bright black and yellow excavators that they manufacture, commonly referred to as the JCB. It is mainly used for digging and general landscaping/leveling. I guess most of us have seen those in places where construction is in progress. But till last year, I wasn’t even aware of what they were called, I wasn’t really interested. Learnt it only when Shaurya got interested in them. :-)

There is this vacant lot beside our residential society. Sometime around Jan/Feb last year, a JCB came there and started tilling the land. It was removing all the big boulders, metallic wires and other stuff present in the lot and was leveling it. Since it was a huge machine and was making a lot of noise, Shaurya was fascinated from Day 1. He used to sit near the window of his room and look at what the JCB was doing. And he was doing this for hours i.e, sitting near the window and watching :-D. I initially thought, he will get bored in few days.. but the tilling happened in the nearby lot for a long time.. (About 3 months or so & only during afternoons) and Shaurya was there watching it all the time. During that time, it was very easy for us to feed him. He would happily eat whatever was given as his attention was more on the JCB. He became a big JCB fan since that time. (And also a fan of tractor since tractors came to take away many of the things that the JCB was digging out). M even bought him his own toy JCB to play with.

We told Shaurya that next time when we go home, we will take him on board his Tauji’s (M’s brother) JCB. Bhaiya is into construction business and uses JCBs for his work. Anyways home trip, as always, were very hectic and we really couldn’t take Shaurya inside a JCB. Instead Bhaiya gifted  him a cool remote controlled JCB and a bright red tractor (and a train, bike & car as bonus! :-)).  Shaurya loves playing with them, he uses the JCB to pull up some of his mini airplanes and then puts them inside a truck mimicking how the real JCB digs dirt and loads into the trucks. Once M showed him some JCB videos on you tube, the result is whenever Shaurya sees us using the laptop now, he wants us to play videos of JCB.

Now a commercial space is getting constructed in one of the vacant lots nearby. Construction is in full swing and there are lots of JCBs and Trucks around. And of course Shaurya is busy watching them. As soon as he wakes up in the morning he goes to the terrace and sees if JCBs have started, if not, he shouts ‘Uncle, kaam chaalo karo’ (Uncle, start working!). If he is inside and he hears the sound of the JCB, he comes out running into the terrace. He gets his toys into the terrace and mimics the digging, loading and unloading acts! One weekend, M even took him to the JCB and the driver happily invited both M and Shaurya in. Shaurya was super excited and happy inside and kept on telling me and aunty about how much fun he had there and what he saw the driver doing. Now he wants to sit on a truck as well! :-D Don’t know how long this love affair will last, but it’s awesome seeing the fascination and excitement that kids have for some things!