Bus driver & school kids

It was morning time, around 9-9:30 AM.
Volvo was rushing towards Nagpur. I sat just behind the driver, and out through the windshield, saw a group of kids on their way to school. They were perspiring from the heat.

Suddenly the bus stopped.
Driver motioned for the kids to get in. About half a dozen chirpy birds crowded the cabin. On the way, driver asked them a few questions. The kids were a talkative lot and informed that they were on their way to give the final exams, they had English paper that day and that it was “layi bhaari paper”.
It was clear they had found themselves in an air-conditioned bus like Volvo for the first time and were greatly enamoured. I had an unopened pack of biscuits, which I gave them. They distributed it among themselves and ate it heartily.

A couple of kilometers later,
... we reached their destination, the school. As they got down, the driver told them, “Study well. If you don’t, you will become a driver like me… but if you study hard now, one day you will become (he pointed at me) a sahib like him and get to travel in big buses like this.”

They waved at us, said “Thank you” in a chorus, and waved at us.
We waved back and resumed our journey.

I casually asked the driver if he knew these kids. He said no, he had just seen them walking on the road and decided to give them a free ride.

“I too used to walk to school along this same road. By the time I got back home, the legs pained horribly. I studied till seventh standard before giving up. But had I persisted then, I wouldn’t have still been on the road.”