Chal Dhanno… Alvida!

™Papa bought a new car today

™Nothing is new or un-usual in this, thousands of people do that everyday.

™But that also means that our old –twenty year old faithful ambassador has to be replaced. It will be sold to some random junkyard.

™Bhaiya scolds me for getting attached to people, things , places ,rented houses so much so that I almost sound like the same 3 year old who sat on the back seat of the blue gypsey, with a basket full of toys on the lap and thick tears rolling down the cheeks, when we were getting shifted from the one BHK rented home to our own newly constructed home. I was getting all the more emotional because everyone else was happy and laughing at me.

™Same way I felt and behaved when I was leaving my hostel room at Nora Nivas or that one BHK home at Shahpur Jat.

™Not that I was always a sissy baby crying foul every time, my emotions were always in my control. In fact I controlled my tears on my vidaai even when everyone else was deeply crying. It was because Papa could have broke down emotionally very badly, being a chronic hypertension patient he is.

™It is only after my life has gone hay where three  years and a few months down the marriage lanes , that I have become emotional and tears well up very easily. When nothing turns up according to you, you can do nothing but cry! To the heart’s content.

™Anyways…That White Ambassador…

Twenty years back she came in our lives…

She has been a witness to our daily hustle bustle and internal strife.

We called her Dhanno because she served us so faithfully upright.

Normally , politicians and officials use ambassador to depict power.

For us she was epitome of space adjustment wherein even six seven of us could fit in and she would not even binge or cackle.

Her hoarse engine noise would sometimes make my mum frown,

But then she laughed because someone would come and say that Dhanno has made Papa and all of us renowned in that small town.

Be it my driving lessons that bhaiya gave on aerodrome or the long drive along the koyal river, Dhanno was always there.

Rocky terrains, village , mountains and hills, Papa and me have both worked socially and un-ceremonously alighting in and out of her.

Driving her at the speed of twenty I had made my Grandma proud.

She actively witnessed me bid adieu after marriage and bhabhi was warmly welcomed.

Travelling everyday to college universities and intellectual shrines everyday with Papa,

I have a feeling she must have become ‘half professor’ by now on honoraria !

Even More than all of us, she has served my parents well.

But its time to fare her well.

Makes me remind that Everything comes with an imprinted expiry date.

 Beyond that nothing stays, neither you, nor me, neither Dhanno , nor her story.

Because Sun sets on the horizon in all its glory.

PRACTICALLY EVERYDAY!!!