Over forty-one years ago, I bought my first car.

I was just in my twenties, armed with ambition, a growing business, and a desperate desire to own a four-wheeled beast I could call mine. And so, when the opportunity arose to buy a car — a real car! — I jumped at it.

There were only two models manufactured in India then. Both had waiting lines longer than the Nile. And so we, the lesser mortals, did what everyone else did: bought second-hand cars, usually older than us, patched them up, and prayed our way from Point A to Point B.

My first car? She was 25 years old when I bought her. A grand old dame. The kind you’d park at the Gateway of India just to be admired. I spent a king’s ransom getting her tin work done, and her paint job — oh, she gleamed like a royal chariot. After it was done, she looked like she’d just rolled off a Parisian ramp. But beneath that radiant silver hood, was a heart that wheezed, coughed, and occasionally gave up altogether.

I never did fix the engine.

So there I was, every other Sunday or so, stranded on some dusty road, lifting the hood like a magician about to perform a trick, peering in with the conviction of a mechanic and the skills of a poet, tying up wires with my handkerchief, and murmuring silent prayers that she’d sputter to life.

She usually did. Not because of anything I did. But because old ladies like her had character. They didn’t like to give up on hopeless owners.

Then came the Maruti 800.

A revelation. I bought it new, fresh from the showroom, with that factory-smell still clinging to its insides. Next to my grand old lady, the Maruti looked almost apologetic — small, humble, modest. But the moment you turned the ignition, she purred like a cat with cream. No more stopping by the roadside. No more tying up parts with cotton hankies. She may not have turned heads, but she turned wheels. Smoothly.

And somewhere along the way, I had a revelation too.

Most of us — individuals, nations, institutions — are like that old car. Painted bright, tin work polished, chrome gleaming. But what about the engine?

So when we sputter and stall — in diplomacy, governance, leadership — we send delegations across the world to explain, to convince, to plead. “We are honest,” we say. “We’re a great democracy,” we add. “Please believe us.”

But the world, like a seasoned driver, listens for the engine.

They don’t care about the paint. They know when there’s nothing under the hood.

So maybe it’s time we stopped buffing the bonnet and started fixing the engine. Because someday, somewhere, there won’t even be a hanky with a Tharoor accent strong enough to hold the parts together.

And unlike my car, the world may not wait.

Not even for a paint job…!

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