Trouvaille (origin French) means a chance encounter with something wonderful, a windfall, a lucky find. Whether it's stumbling across a hidden back street, discovering a quaint cafe, or connecting with a local during a journey-the joy they bring is what you call trouvaille.
Yūgen (origin Japanese) is a profound and mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe and the sad beauty of human suffering-an awareness that triggers emotional responses too deep and powerful for words.
Trouvailles: My Moments of Yūgen is Shuvashree Chowdhury's second collection of poems. They are crafted from the physical and mental journeys she undertook to find herself. One moment she is navigating the ghats and galis of the holy city of Banaras; in another she is gazing at the mighty Kanchenjunga from Darjeeling and Kalimpong; one moment she is experiencing the calm of Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan; in another she is walking along the Hooghly in pastoral Bengal. Then there is travel— in the form of contemplation-undertaken during the Covid-forced lockdown.
The poems are not so much about the destinations, but a fresh way of looking at places we already knew about. They are an optimistic and positive reflection on life and death; love and relationships; rejection and resilience.
