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.)
