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| 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.
