In “The Night Train at Deoli” by Ruskin Bond, the author draws readers into the story through an introduction to the narrator and a vivid description of the story’s setting. Let’s see how this works.

The story opens with the narrator’s explanation of his summer vacations at his grandmother’s house. This tells us something interesting about the narrator, for most college students do not spend their summer vacations with their grandmothers. This young man seems to be devoted to his family, and we are already curious about him.

The narrator then goes on to describe the small station at Deoli where the train stopped for ten minutes. He admits that he has no idea why it stopped there, for nothing “ever happened there,” and no one ever got on or off the train. Yet we can sense that something is about to happen at that little station, something that will change the narrator’s life.

The narrator says that he was always a little sorry for Deoli, so he decided to get off the train and look around. We are now curious what he is going to find. So we keep on reading. The author has drawn us in.