Vandana Kumar (Diaspora Dual Identities)

Vandana Kumar

The American I love

 

My Nani used to tell me stories

Of distant aunts and uncles

Settled on foreign shores

Getting a reception fit for kings and queens

Visiting poor country cousins back home

 

I imagined the welcome marigold garlands at the airport

I remember one such aunt

Doling out gifts to our domestic help

Those ‘Dollar Store’ shiny lipstick sets

 

My best friend and I share a laugh over this

She too, is settled in America

We bond over Tagore poems and the Beatles

And no, she doesn’t gift anyone freebies from hotels

She doesn’t wear her patriotism on her sleeve either

 

 

In the opposite direction

 

I am in a Taxi

On the highway

I roll down the window

Against air quality advice

 

It’s liberating

The driver doesn’t ask me about my husband

Or kids

Doesn’t give unsolicited advice

On my failing marriage

 

 

Vehicles pass by

In the opposite direction

I wonder if they are headed

To my home town

If the beginning of my voyage

Is another man’s destination today?

 

We talk briefly

Of other things                           

How often he goes back

To his native village

Been a while he says

“What’s the point?

It’s started to resemble a small city

Soon I won’t be able to tell them apart”

 

This brief intimacy

Lasts for as long

 As I am

In the car

The ride ends

His dirge of a lost hamlet

Lingers for a bit

 

 

Vandana Kumar is a French teacher, translator, recruitment consultant, cinephile, Indie Film Producer and multiple award-winning poet from New Delhi, India. Her poems have been published in national and international websites and anthologies of repute. She is currently a poetry editor with the Reader’s Choice magazine – a quarterly magazine published by the Aabs publishing House. She is a Pushcart prize nominee 2023 and her poetry collection ‘Mannequin of Our Times’ has won several awards. She is representing India as the festival ambassador for the Panorama International Literature Festival 2025.

No comments :

Post a Comment

We welcome your comments related to the article and the topic being discussed. We expect the comments to be courteous, and respectful of the author and other commenters. Setu reserves the right to moderate, remove or reject comments that contain foul language, insult, hatred, personal information or indicate bad intention. The views expressed in comments reflect those of the commenter, not the official views of the Setu editorial board. рдк्рд░рдХाрд╢िрдд рд░рдЪрдиा рд╕े рд╕рдо्рдмंрдзिрдд рд╢ाрд▓ीрди рд╕рдо्рд╡ाрдж рдХा рд╕्рд╡ाрдЧрдд рд╣ै।