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Two Poems By Vandana?Kumar

Vandana?Kumar writes two poems for Outlook.

Vandana Kumar

Updated on: 23 September 2023 9:42 am

Photo: Getty Images

Forgetting the mother inside?

I think of mothers?
Robust Russian women wearing aprons
Matronly peasants?
Women of the soil in our farmlands as well?

The subject of Renaissance paintings
Women surrounded by their children
Making dough?
Feeding children?
Peeling apples?
As they nibble on a bit of the apple skin, themselves

I think of all of them
All at once
My mother does not resemble any of them
My mother does not admonish me
My muddy hands before a meal
Don’t catch her attention?
She doesn’t ask me why I am out late?
Or up, unusually early?

I keep a bevy of attendants?
Fussing around her occasionally?
Helping her negotiate?
To differentiate?
A sunrise from a sunset?

The dead are clearly demarcated?
As dead
But in my town
The living have also started to fade

The mother?
Inside my mother
Is becoming a distant reminiscence?

The suitcases go back into the loft

Jetlagged bones
Ache for some black coffee
I sit in a little corner
Two duffel bags and
An extra-large suitcase
That spells foreign travel
Occupy most of the bed

The aircraft freebies come in handy
I hand over a pair of headphones?
To the maid
She thanks me profusely?
On her daughter’s behalf

She fills me in?
Failed crops
Excess rains
Another loan in the village
To pay off last year’s debts?

How was your holiday? She casually asks?

My travels suddenly shrink?
Everything seems diminutive?
How my acrophobia kept me from the ‘London Eye’
The daunting queues inside the Louvre
My desire to write cool lyrics there?
To create another famous ‘Mona Lisa’ song?

“At leisure?
Some other day
Let’s first get the laundry
Out of the way”?

My domestic help?
Winces in sympathy
Unpacking deflates all the
Travel reminiscences

(Vandana?Kumar is a French teacher, translator, Indie film producer and poet residing in New Delhi.)