The speaker sits indoors, hearing ambulance sirens pass again and again. At first he would rush to the window and watch: ambulances carrying faces "dark with misery," then cars racing with horns blaring, and autorickshaws where an injured, blood-streaked person slumps against a companion. He is struck most by the onlookers' expressions, a mix of vacancy, fear, and quiet acceptance of fate.
Over time, the scene changes for him. He no longer settles in his seat to wait for the wailing, and he no longer looks out. Even the sirens seem to sound differently, some urgent, some slow, as if they know nothing can help. The poem ends on its most unsettling turn: the speaker, once moved by others' suffering, now sits with a heavy heart and listens for the sound that might come for him. The mood is sombre and quietly fearful, with a weary sense of how familiar death has become.