Cable Car

 

Cable car disappears

Into the greyed melancholy

Of monsoon clouds;

 

You stare for long

And decide

This cannot be the way

‘Is this the valour

The Marathas would expect of us?’

 

I didn’t want to walk,

I persisted

I failed

 

'What would Chhatrapati say?’

Shortcut Shivaji, I humoured

He wouldn’t mind,

If you could win

At any cost

 

But you smile

‘You have to earn it – your victories –

The only way the flag unfurls on the top…’

 

So, we marched

Up the thousand stairs

A grey, basalt test,

Like thousands before us

Earning the walk

 

Through mossy slithers

Uncaring cascades

Slips, cuts and falls

 

At the top,

Chhatrapati stared

I wondered how would he measure our victory

I wanted to ask but you were lost

Gazing at grey tarps

 

That covered the skies

Ah – that magic of the monsoons

That melancholy before the rains

 

The memories come back

Years later

I smile:

 

You had disappeared

Long back

On the cable cars

While I took your lessons of valour

Too close to heart

 

Closure, pilgrimage

Whatever

I had to return – to walk again

 

All the way

To the top,

Wet, bedraggled,

Snipped, bruised  

By tests passed long ago

 

Eternal Shivaji meets me again

Waiting all along

For me to realise

 

You have to earn

Not just your victories

But also your losses

Test of a thousand stairs

Even when no flag unfurls on the top

 

The tarp of indigo

Presents a lonely crown

That no one gets to wear

 

The cable car arrives

Portly travellers alight

Undeserving of the fort

While I, who earned it all

Smile, empty handed

 

You have to earn

Not just your victories

But also your losses…

 

19^th December 2025

 

Inspired by the cable car at Raigad, Maharashtra