Ambassador

I stop –

At one of the many by-lanes of Gariahat –

An old decrepit Ambassador car

Lies beneath years of dust

Its mustard yellow brilliance still fights back

Glowing, reminding

‘Once upon a time we were the sun’

 

Indeed, how many trips had we not taken

Packed inside a yellow ambassador

Crossing cities, villages, the country;

How many VVIPs would pass by

In curtained ibis-white ambassadors

A red beacon overhead,

A sign of prestige on the roads

 

But today, we can afford luxury

And home-made simplicity

Fades away

Writing epitaphs in dusty lanes

Until they merge

With the dirt of time

As the city move on

 

While your neighbour will ask -

‘New car –

Is it German? Japanese?’

I stare at the relic,

While a radio crackles somewhere

And a song comes back to me

Mayer deya mota kapor….

 

I wonder, how years back

A man-made Khadi

To fight back Manchester’s cotton;

What would he think today?

A hand drawn rickshaw goes past,

A snazzy Skoda passes by –

Where we fight ourselves, who needs an old Ambassador?