VANDANA KUMAR - POEMS

 Vandana Kumar is a bon vivant who loves travelling, working with young minds and exploring creative possibilities beyond the ordinary. She has done her masters in History from ‘Lady Shri Ram College’ – ‘University of Delhi’ and her Diplôme from the ‘Alliance Française de Delhi’.
She is a middle school teacher and also translates for various publishing houses and corporates. An active member of various quiz clubs across Delhi. She has a soft corner for Calcutta where she spent her childhood. Her various passions include singing, playing the piano, composing music and participating in local music competitions. She describes herself as a dreamer…a wanderer and a certified incurable romantic…the romantic moorings worsened with all her fancy French studies. She contributes poems regularly to online magazines and has been published in a couple of anthologies. Poetry for her is her stress buster – her flight of fancy – and strangely – what keeps her rooted too.

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YET ANOTHER FALL
​

​I remember that season with you  
It was our favorite time of the year 
There I was – quoting Proust 
And there you were – watching me
 
Riveted by the scarlet canvas 
We created a rhapsody on the bed of orange 
Crunchy and rustling was our passion 
Just like those leaves 
The air was nippy 
The forest on fire
 
 I remember the winter being ‘close enough yet far’
 A little like what we have become today. 
Come the month of shifting seasons 
Another autumn will waltz in 
And that for the record will be – 
Yet ‘Another Fall’ without you

20 YEARS FROM NOW
​

​20 years from now
I will take you on a guided tour my love…
of our cached mansion….
 
The first room with those silky sheets and satin spreads….
Under which lies buried my smile and your ruffled locks
The second one to its left
Echoes promises made way back then
The third has souvenirs of the study
And I- pad that was privy to all our exchanges
 
The kitchen 
remembers how you would grab me from behind
and the delirious me would happily abandon the half done ‘poisson’ – for what you had in mind
 
Each room with all its sounds
and all its smells
even now I smell it…
The smell of ache 
Of longing and most of all
The smell of US!!!
 
Each room now has its lock I'm told
Just like our furtive glances were
And our clandestine dates
These locks forbid our tales an exit!!!
 
 
20 years later my love
Will take you back to that secret retreat 
And I will ask you
To tell me what you remember
As I will tell you even all that you wish to forget!!!... 
                                                     

HUNGER GAMES
​

​Seated ‘lady like’ and demure  
Diagonally opposite you
We the ‘convent indoctrinated’
Skilled in social niceties
 
Your head shook at the right moment
“No thanks I am done”
 At the mention of another petit four
 But our cores throbbed
 In unison
 Wanting to devour each other
 Instead of the canapés on offer
 
 The heaving bosom saw your discreet glance
 And wanted to dance loose for you
 But for the constricting apparel
 That came in the way
 The self-conscious legs crossed again
 Flashes of you spreading them
 On verdant lawn
 Pounding in open blue sky
 
Settled on that sofa across  
You never did ask how hungry I was
And I wrapped in bourgeois propriety
Never did tell