Jhilam Chattaraj in Conversation with H Kalpana Rao

Jhilam Chattaraj is an academic and poet based in Hyderabad, India. She has authored the books, Noise Cancellation, When Lovers Leave and Poetry Stays and Corporate Fiction: Popular Culture and the New Writers. Her works have been published at Calyx, Ariel, Room Porridge, Not Very Quiet, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Colorado Review, World Literature Today, and Asian Cha among others. She received the CTI Excellence Award in “Literature and Soft Skills Development,” 2019 from the Council for Transforming India and the Department of Language and Culture, Government of Telangana, India. Her poetry has been praised and reviewed by eminent scholars like Gopal Rao (Café Dissensus) Semeen Ali (Transcendent Zero Press), Neeraja Murthy (The Hindu), and Nishi Pulugurtha (The Statesman). Dr Amit Shankar Saha in Jaggery Lit notes: “Chattaraj raises questions on gender, politics, society, and popular culture. Her approach is inquisitive and coloured with imagination. For her, poetry is an “unimagined home” because when lovers leave, they leave behind unimagined “walls, windows, novels, bed sheets,” (p.47).” Here, she is in conversation about her poetic sensibility and her writing experience.

Kalpana Rao (KR): What does writing mean to you? How did you begin to write?
Jhilam Chattaraj (JC): I look forward to publishing in journals. It’s my adrenaline rush—the uncertainty of receiving the acceptance letter—the stir of rejection emails— it keeps me going — write, rewrite, submit. I have published more than 30 poems and literary articles, and interviews of poets in various journals in 2023; some of them being: Porridge, Calyx, The Wire, Rabbit, FemAsia, Six Seasons Review, Panorama, South Florida Poetry Journal, One Art, and New Contrast Literary Magazine.
‘Writing’ to me is a connection. Blurry ideas of academic success could derail one from the real pleasures of life. Poetry — its unpredictable relationship with language moulds me like the protagonists of Modern poetry — Prufrock, the phantasmic city spirit, or the Flâneuse — I am on a constant quest.
I began writing in Bengali. My mother encouraged me to keep a book of poetry. Throughout my Graduation and later years, poems were merely a hobby but something happened during my PhD. I secretly began to take poetry seriously. I read a lot of poetry — different kinds; studied the craft and began writing. I reached a stage where words refused to remain refugees — poetry became a compulsion. Every day, after coming back from work, I devoted at least five to six hours to my poems. After days of isolation and frequent trips to emotionally unhealthy spaces, I came out with my first book. 

KR : Tell us about your books.
JC: My first book was When Lovers Leave and Poetry Stays in 2018. Good poetry is “the marriage of truth and beauty”. For a long time, my truth was a series of violent circumstances. But the eye of poetry made me see the beauty of pain. I recall the poem, ‘Path’ by Jack Hirschman: ‘Broken-heartedness is the beginning/of all real reception’.
We live in a world, where we are pressured to seek happiness. But grief has virtues of its own. The book is exactly what the title suggests: narratives of people I loved before; all of them shaped me in some way or another. I mourn the loss of companionship but I don’t pine for them. I love my solitary space filled with poetry and perceptions.
Noise Cancellation published in 2021 presents poetry inspired by everyday cultural experiences. It envisions a sustainable consciousness where one is able to focus more on the tangible reality around them. The poems are not didactic narratives but curated cultural wisdom that calls for a sensuous, aesthetic, and intellectual appreciation of poetry. It will always be my favourite book; it begins and ends with my father:

Aloo Posto

Imagine
a mustard afternoon.

The kitchen, barefoot
on summer’s breath.

Newspapers mumbling
between Baba’s thick fingers

and you, beneath the high-blue Bengal sky,
wait moist, for gorom bhaat, biulir daal, aloo posto (p.1).

***

Cinquain Variant
2.4.6.8.2

Father —
not house, a blue
postcard, the smell of blue
ink— curl of your fingers — warmest
infolds (p. 90).
 

KR : What was the reception to the book?
JC: The book has been widely appreciated. The Rain Taxi Review of Books (2022) called it “Raw and Intelligent”. I was happy to receive such warm and intelligent responses. I did not expect the number one spot—bless the Amazon algorithms—many people who bought the book got back to me and expressed their joy at reading poems like ‘A Husky in Hyderabad’, ‘Phuchka’, ‘Lipstick’, and ‘Edible Stain’. I am thankful to the reviewers and interviewers who read and featured the book. I appreciate Hawakal Publishers for making Noise Cancellation available to readers in India and abroad.

KR : How would you locate yourself as a woman poet? Is there anything specific that the term or label carries? How does your poetry look into the idea of gender?
JC: I enjoy exploring women in the context of kinship and family. It’s a complex relationship. Personally, I seek the stability of a home and I also like diving into solitary, unsteady, bohemian experiences. My poem ‘Sari’ has been nominated for the Nina Riggs Poetry Award, 2023 — a significant American poetry award to celebrate women and their relationship with domesticity. The poem ‘Sari’ (first published in The West Trestle Review) is about the beauty of fabrics enlivening our daily lives and yet being a testimony to both loving and violent relationships:

Sari

Six yards of soft wetness
soak the forenoon sun. 

Cotton expanse in powder blue, 
filigreed edges in faux gold

puff like sails in sea wind —
a voyage into endurance.

My mother’s sari is a scripture, 
a flag carrying countries of household truths:  

she, in bed with children,
she, scrubbing the mossy bathroom walls,

she, in kitchen, smashing
a cockroach to its end. 

There’s love and violence  
that only the pleats of the sari know.

Now, so much depends 
on the bee-loud-brilliance of the sari

drifting in fragrant droplets into the air—
claiming its share of radiance

from farmers, weavers and men— 
their curious figurines

melting into a fabric — ripe with moisture 
and a million perforations.

In my first book, the idea of gender which is largely a social construct was a bit predictable; men were lovers, adventurers, and escapists; women were nurturers, and homebound.  In the second book, gender is reflected through cultural objects and associations.
In the poem, ‘My Hair Won’t Cry’, first published at Room, I look into the grief of a woman who cannot ritually shave her head like her brother during the Hindu funeral of the father. In the poem, ‘Ugadi Pachadi’, both the man and the woman are confused with their marital ties. In my present poems, such as ‘Uluu Dhwani’, Rabbit, and ‘The Face’, FemAsia, I primarily study the cultural roles of women and men. In the rather less noticed poem ‘Tactile’, I talk about the culture surrounding people who are physically expressive —and the gamut of social media police who are both male or female.

KR : What are you working on now?
JC: I am working on this aspect of digital cultures— perhaps on urban lives suffocated with our dependence on QR codes and UPI transactions — this invisible culture of hustle incomes and expenditure. It disturbs me to see the way rare natural formations are being destroyed to build corporate offices and villas for the uber-rich:

Khajaguda Hills, Hyderabad

          —The Ulu Review, September, 2023
 

Stones 
on Khajaguda Hills
release April heat.

Bulldozed skies
turn to grey thunder—
strangers become lovers.

They grow bird wings,
explore every rock,
seek safe routes 

for interrupted hearts.
Far, in the blur, 
Golkonda listens 

to the familiar dirge
of rain-fragrant stones.
Gneissic, granite —

very hard and very old,
melt into a pool
of real estate gamble.

Opulence — brims, spills.
Each boulder is stamped
with man’s image of God. 

Twilight’s azaan fills the sky.
Dim lights of the dargah 
embrace wet, weary pilgrims.

Elephant-skinned stones
bend and pray, hoping
to halt the constant breakage,

but fail. Rocks shatter 
rubble to lucre — 
wounds erase history.

It bothers me to see the way young boys and girls compromise their education to become delivery agents — travel miles to earn a bit of gig money and it’s a survival mechanism in big cities. I was surprised to see that in Hampi, Karnataka there were no delivery agents — it reminded me of the days when we were not tempted by digital consumption:

Hampi , Karnataka

—One Art Poetry Journal, September, 2023

In Hampi,
streets are not interrupted
by delivery boys.

Apps are merely cosmetic.
Cyber rhizomes meld
into the antique sun.

Boulders rise from brambles —
quiet colossal remnants
of a jewelled empire.

Women — their hair,
heavy with the musk of jasmine
occupy smooth, winding roads.

Children wait for the school bus.
Men carry goats on bicycles.
Stones break into gods.

Everybody obeys to seasons of stillness.
There’s mercy in Hampi’s brick-red dust.
Faith fascinates life.

 

KR : In your collection, there are a few poems about places such as Bidar and Benares. How do you think urban spaces affect you?
JC: I see places through the lens of the ‘spatial turn’, the French theoretical perspective inspired by Edward Soja’s Postmodern Geographies, 1989 which established the international reception for Henri Lefebvre’s La Production d’ Espace (1974). A place is not fixed by geographical and chronological dimensions — it is the production of space — the creation of social changes. Places have spirits and I attempt to evoke them through my ethnic, cultural, and gendered experience of the place.

Park Street, Kolkata, 28 February, 2020

In the lake, the arms of temples and mosques are locked in each other's reflections
        ‘Farewell,’ The Country Without a Post Office, Agha Shahid Ali
 

23 February, 2020.
Infinite fury in the streets of Delhi.

Blood songs of dappled gods
bellowed beyond beginnings.

Days later, in Park Street, Kolkata,
Friday ushered humans — high on spring.

In multitudes, they loosened hope.
Sweet hymns wet with rain cleared the country’s fog.

Alleys, puzzles, effulgence —
one could not tell the religion of gods.

I saw with a pilgrim’s eye;
lips, praying/ singing; waiting/ loving.

Biriyani-flavoured winds lifted the thick lanes.
Hawkers yelled prices of flowers, stoles and key chains.

Children cried over cheap ice creams,
mothers bargained for shoes and bangles.

Could the same souls disembowel the city?
Dance on the debris of difference?

Such are the melodies of my pendulous nation.
Endless ceremonies for sensual joys:

some bring belief with fire and knives
some preach faith like paper kites

KR : How is the poetry platform in India? What would you like to see happening in India regarding poetry? There are literary festivals and poetry gatherings. Do you think that would create awareness?
JC: Writing is a solitary persuasion. But every poem functions within a ‘social space’— unless the poem leaps out of the page into the ears of the reader, it really does not exist. Hence, to me, connecting with readers is essential. Literary festivals, digital media, and curated poetry readings are delightful platforms to meet new people, seasoned readers, amateurs and others. Imagine, connecting with an absolute stranger who knows and responds to the weirdest things you write — lizards, dragonflies, mosquitoes. The reader’s presence validates the lonely nights we spend writing and editing our work. Lit fests are also an opportunity to grow. I have met several poets and been inspired by the way they read and talk about their works. How wonderful it is to actually meet a poet one has read for years —I would rather cancel a wedding or a movie date to be at a literary event— or attend the event with my partner—that sounds better!

KR : What or who are the influences for your poetry?
JC: Poetry will not make you a millionaire, but it will open doors. And, I say this as someone who has merely begun to explore poetry — I had the good fortune to meet and interview several eminent poets such as the late Meena Alexander and talented contemporary poets like Sudeep Sen, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Ranjit Hoskote and Tishani Doshi — each one of the conversations has enriched me — blessed me with a unique perspective. I did not grow alone; I am the sum of all the poets and writers who came before me. I always look forward to the joy of discovering a parallel world of beauty, sensuality, empathy and growth.

KR : What’s your final message through poetry?
JC: Presently, when the world is torn apart by violence, intolerance and death, I only wish to raise awareness towards a mindful living rooted in kindness and peace:

Florets
of grass emblaze
sun sheets — the big often
need the small — don't we save faith in
pockets?