When a Long Train Journey Turned into a Sketchbook

(2 mins read)

The train was crowded, our seats were only partially confirmed (RAC), and we were sharing space. Boredom, quite naturally, began to creep in. I wanted to keep screen time low, so I stepped in and asked my eldest son to bring out his moral storybooks. An hour passed, and soon we were looking for something new to do. After a bit of brainstorming, a simple idea , to draw what we could see outside the window.

I had to be the inspiration for my kids. As the train moved, I sketched the landscape passing by: winter fields with harvested rice and wheat, a thin road cutting through them, hills in the distance, and small ponds and lakes scattered here and there. Herds of cows, sheep, and goats grazed along the ground. With just a pen, I tried to freeze these little moments on paper. It wasn’t meant to be perfect, just a way to slow down the journey and make space for imagination.

Once it was done, my kids were surprised by my little messy painting. That fuelled some spark in my 8-year-old. He took the pen from me, exactly what I had hoped for. Inspired by the drawing, he created his own world: tall buildings with kids flying kites from their rooftops, a sky full of movement, and even an aeroplane caught in a kite’s string. 

What started as a simple way to pass time slowly became a shared moment of creativity. It reminded me that when children are given a little space and encouragement, their imagination can go much further than we expect.