Sunny Dua
Name : The Petals of Reminiscence
Author : Pankhuri Aggarwal
Publisher : Bluerose publishers
Genre : Poetry
Pages : 190
American novelist and Pulitzer prize winner, Joyce Carol Oates has once said and I quote, ‘In love there are two things – bodies and words’. This is deep!This is deep especially when the earlier vanishes forever the later affirms emotions which if are given a vent become poetry. Poetess Pankhuri Aggarwal having lost her maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather did almost the same by weaving words into poetry that describe her love for the lost ones called “The Petals of Reminiscence: A Step Back in Time”.
Pankhuri seems to have dedicated her time and energy in summing up her emotions into an anthology of one hundred and one poems solely dedicated to the two beautiful souls that she admired, looked upon and loved to the core. While one hundred poems in ‘Petals of Reminiscence’describe her love for maternal grandmother Saroj Gupta whom she describes as God’s masterpiece, one particular poem stands dedicated to her grandfather Ram Murti Aggarwal.
Since love does not restrain itselfit’s best expressed in words. Like Mirabai, a 16th-century poet and devotee of Krishna who owns to her credit poetry dedicated to God in the form of Krishna has philosophical connotations, poems in ‘Petals of Reminiscence’ possess love for dear ones, a longing for their being around and a desire to see them embracing the poetess. While many live with sweet memories of their lost ones others carry forward legacies left by the same people and live their dreams.
The poetry in this book is a real tribute to her ‘Nani’ and ‘Dada’ by Pankhuri Aggarwal. Going through the poems one can explore how kids should be raised and how kids must reciprocate. Living in nuclear families many won’t be able to understand the emotions penned down in this book but those in extended families will definitely connect themselves with each and every poem and relate their childhood spent in the company of elders as well.
Most of the poems disseminate views about how little kids should be raised and how much loved so that they reciprocate by looking after elders, embracing them, respecting them, being there in the times of ailments or distress and to be more precise having a strong bond that’s missing because of haywire gone schedules of this materialistic world. Pankhuri has well spelt how she was part of daily chorus of her elders, how seasons changed with and without them, how much their ailment meant to her and how’s she going to move on.
Each and every poem is heart touching and the poetess has done justice with her love by using apt words to describe herself in the given circumstances. Emotions like love, pain, anxiety, loss, craving and many more have all been well reflected in poems. Simple yet impressive language connects one with poetry and even would relate manto the situations.
Living in Jammu, Pankhuri Agarwal through her poetic voyage has in fact has taken everyone through all the shades of life encapsulating love, companionship, bliss, triumph to anxiety, distress, heartache, death, loss, rejection, and redemption. Pankhuri has very articulately given credit of her success to each and every family member besides mentors in acknowledgement. Gold medallist in English Literature, she has completed her M.Phil and is currently pursuing her Ph.D in English Literature from University of Jammu. Her maiden book was also enlisted for London Book Fair-2020 and received “Kunwar Viyogi Young Writers Award”. Another feather in her cap was decorated when the book was shortlisted to be placed in the Oxford Library, New Delhi.
One is sure to get nostalgic by going through maiden anthology of poetry and here are few lines from one of them that might make one to get through the pages of this book only to understand what love and lost love means…
How do I profess
how hard it is
to exist without you?
With each and every breath
that I take in,
I chant your name.
You forsook me.
Yet, I will not
let your reminiscences,
Your echoes,
Set off.
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