In Mannequin of our times, Vandana Kumar imagines the insights culled from the banal and mundane aspects of living. However, this living takes place on the edge of a civilization falling into ruins following the pandemic. In some ways, Kumar's poetic vision leads the reader toward an understanding that not much is changing during this global historical upheaval. She writes poignant lines about the human condition such as

the history of grief
is too old
to have started this year
and too young
to end with it.

With these lines, we sense Kumar struggling to situate the contemporary into the universal. The universal may take precedence, but personal experience is the wordsmith's true fodder. These poems speak of the contemporary through the lens of particular observations that engage with our historical moment. The universal person is questioned, however. Mannequin of our times is an experience of living within a world on hinge, a world facing dubious battles of its own.