Book Review: Noise Cancellation by Jhilam Chattaraj

Sayan Aich Bhowmik reviews Jhilam Chattaraj’s poetry collection Noise Cancellation ( Hawakal Publishers, 2021) and calls it a Protean in nature, scope, and treatment.

• Publisher: Hawakal Publishers, New Delhi, Kolkata, India. 
• Pages: 100
• Date of Publication: September 2021.

Noise Cancellation is a curious book of poems. One may be tempted to believe that the poems that have found a place in this beautifully edited and curated collection deal only with the aural. And the picture on the cover may only accentuate that belief. But as one enters into the very private and protected world of this book, one is taken aback by the absolute riot of emotions springing upon the reader, a kind of a happy surprise that one gets opening a box of gifts. Because that is what this collection is- a gift. 

The last year and a half have been a very trying one for people belonging to every social and economic stratum. Populations across the globe have been forced to stay at home and restrict their social interactions in person. It is only natural then that certain sights and sounds would come to impinge themselves on our mind and hearts– some of them we would discover and unearth almost after ages and some others we would get used to, to the point of being developing an ear sore. Added to this would be the tsunami of information that we have been subjected to, about the pandemic and daily updates where phrases like “lockdown”, “social distancing” and various medical terms have entered into our daily lexicon. It is only natural that one becomes a sieve, cancelling out certain sounds while internalising a few others.