book launch Fragrant Words by Rajni Sibal IAS

‘Fragrant Words’ is an anthology of verses that portraysthe story of a poet’s journey through life – the misty, the sunny and the harsh. This book is Rajni SekhriSibal’s fifth publication and has been published by Bloomsbury publications. Fragrant Words is a collection of words that have been strung together over the years.After ‘Clouds End and Beyond’, published in 2017, ‘Fragrant Words’ is the author’s second anthology.  The verses in ‘Fragrant Words’ depict all the colours of the rainbow: dreamy vistas blurred by harsh realities, mellow calmness disrupted by loud cacophony and beautiful emotions tempered with teardrops in the rain…

The author, an IAS officer, writes as she feels.  There is no order or meticulous plan and the bookreflects thoughts and emotions as experienced by the poet. Fragrant Verses transports the reader todifferent places in space and time: along a pine lined purple mountain,outside a quaint shop amid the labyrinthine lanes of an ancient city, under a fragrant Magnolia tree at the edge of a forest, a snowy winter morning and the polluted smog of a concrete jungle.

Quaint Himalayan villages and towns are the backdrop against which some of  the misty and aromatic verses are written. Other works emote and touch silken, yet resilient, chords of tender bonds. The genre of tender emotions also extends to mystic offerings beyond the horizon.

The book comprises of a few fragrant verses that portray an enigmatic inner quest. Some compositions paint esoteric dangling questions. Others try to figure out the more profane aspects of  life in a new world order.Some versesare poignant and have been inspired by tragic incidents. A few portray the sorrow that accompanies the onset of a disaster – both natural and man-made. Still others convey the ennui that sets in,in an unknown city amidst an indifferentcrowd.

‘Fragrant Words’ is a lyrical illustration of life from a poet’s perspective. It is a medley of verses: some soft and gentle, others heady and strong, while still others evoke the aroma of a memory long forgotten… Like the vivid strokes of a painter  the anthology displays the various colours on a poet’s palette – the black, the white and the mesmerising hues and shades in between. A little like life…