Howrah Bridge

When I was a little girl, I visited Kolkata (Calcutta-back then). I kind of knew about the iconic Howrah Bridge that we had to cross to get to the city considering my curious nature, encouraging mother and precocious reading. The two main facts that I knew were that it was the longest cantilever bridges the world. A cantilever bridge is supported on only one end and the supporting end acts as an anchorage for sustaining another portion. The second fact was that it was the it the busiest balanced cantilever bridge on the planet with highest number of people traveling over it.

One of my older cousin had come to pick us up from the station was very enthusiastic about telling us more about the bridge, about Kolkata in general and had assumed a role of amateur local tourist guide. He started narrating the specialities of the bridge but I started blurting out in middle of his narration as soon as he uttered "Do you know what's special about this bridge?" Because of my interruptions, he paused and said "Go ahead, looks like you know it all!" Of course, I only knew two facts and finished my stuff in less than two minutes and could not go on longer. Now, it was my cousins turn to rebuke and avenge his defeat by a 5 year old, he started asking me more general knowledge questions - such as "what is name of the river?" ( Hooghly) which was a googly question or what is the other name of the bridge?

( Rabindra Setu ) because I did not know and so on.

Not only he stopped narrating more about the city, but I had to fall flat in front of other kids who were equally disappointed that now no one will tell us anymore fun facts. Barring the meanness of my cousin, I think I had something to learn from this incident. If only I would have kept my mouth shut and listened more; may be I would have learnt an additional thing or two.



Image courtesy: https://images.app.goo.gl/LUHL9uvmg24m13rN8




As they say, you will always know what you already know but even in such a scenario when you decide to listen many a times you end up learning something that you didn't know before. We have two ears and one mouth; so we should keep the ratio of listening to talking accordingly. There is no point in being a smart aleck when we don't have to be one...

I keep telling my kids about even the turtle from the "Jataka tells" would not have fallen if only it would have kept its mouth shut. So, It has become a TakiyaKalaam in our home to use "Howrah bridge" to remind when someone is getting on the track of know-it-all-fail.

Image courtesy: THE JATAKAS. Tales of India Recopilación de Jatakas de Ellen C.Babbitt. Ilustraciones de Ellsworth Young. Estados Unidos, 1912


#knowitallfail #SmartAlek #Howrahbridge #whendaddywasalittleboy