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Panty
A woman arrives alone in Kolkata, taking refuge in a deserted apartment while she waits to undergo an unspecified surgery. In this disorienting city, everything seems new and strange: the pavement-dwellers outside her block, the collective displays of religiosity, the power cuts and alarming acts of arson. Her sense of identity already shaken, when she finds a stained pair of leopard print panties in the otherwise empty wardrobe she begins to fantasise about their former owner, whose imagined life comes to blur with and overlap her own.
Pairing manic energy with dark eroticism, Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay's writing has a surreal, feverish quality, slipping between fluid subjects with great stylistic daring. Credited with being 'the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality into Bengali literature', Bandyopadhyay is neither superficial nor sensationalistic, equally concerned with debates on religion and nationhood as with gender and sexuality.
Pairing manic energy with dark eroticism, Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay's writing has a surreal, feverish quality, slipping between fluid subjects with great stylistic daring. Credited with being 'the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality into Bengali literature', Bandyopadhyay is neither superficial nor sensationalistic, equally concerned with debates on religion and nationhood as with gender and sexuality.
122 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2014
63 people are currently reading
1408 people want to read
About the author
Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay
21 books49 followersWhen Panty was first published in Bengali, it created a furore—a reaction that is par for the course for Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay.
Her controversial first novel Shankini made for an explosive debut. Since then she has published nine novels and over fifty short stories. Also a newspaper columnist and a film critic, Sangeeta lives and writes in Kolkata.
সঙ্গীতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়-এর জন্ম ২৩ নভেম্বর ১৯৭৪, দুর্গাপুরে। ১৯৮৬ সাল থেকে কলকাতায় বসবাস। প্রথমে বাগবাজার মালটিপারপাস্ গার্লস স্কুল, পরে গোখেল কলেজে পড়েছেন। তেরো-চোদ্দো বছর বয়স থেকেই কবিতা লেখার শুরু। প্রথম কবিতা ছাপা হয় ‘দেশ’ পত্রিকায় ২০০১-এ। তারপর নিয়মিত দেশ সহ বিভিন্ন পত্র-পত্রিকায় লেখালেখি। প্রথম উপন্যাস শঙ্খিনী। ‘দেশ’-এ ধারাবাহিকভাবে প্রকাশিত। পেশা: সাংবাদিকতা। একটি টিভি চ্যানেলের সঙ্গে যুক্ত। শখ: অসংখ্য। তবে আসল শখ মানুষের সঙ্গে এই মহাপৃথিবীর সম্পর্ক অধ্যয়ন।
Her controversial first novel Shankini made for an explosive debut. Since then she has published nine novels and over fifty short stories. Also a newspaper columnist and a film critic, Sangeeta lives and writes in Kolkata.
সঙ্গীতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায়-এর জন্ম ২৩ নভেম্বর ১৯৭৪, দুর্গাপুরে। ১৯৮৬ সাল থেকে কলকাতায় বসবাস। প্রথমে বাগবাজার মালটিপারপাস্ গার্লস স্কুল, পরে গোখেল কলেজে পড়েছেন। তেরো-চোদ্দো বছর বয়স থেকেই কবিতা লেখার শুরু। প্রথম কবিতা ছাপা হয় ‘দেশ’ পত্রিকায় ২০০১-এ। তারপর নিয়মিত দেশ সহ বিভিন্ন পত্র-পত্রিকায় লেখালেখি। প্রথম উপন্যাস শঙ্খিনী। ‘দেশ’-এ ধারাবাহিকভাবে প্রকাশিত। পেশা: সাংবাদিকতা। একটি টিভি চ্যানেলের সঙ্গে যুক্ত। শখ: অসংখ্য। তবে আসল শখ মানুষের সঙ্গে এই মহাপৃথিবীর সম্পর্ক অধ্যয়ন।
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
July 17, 2019
This consists of a novella, Panty and a short story Sahana or Shamim. They address love, longing and sexual desire and the working out thereof. Bandyopadhyay describes the genesis of the novel thus:
“If, confined by three or four days of constant, torrential rain, someone were to discover Jack Kerouac beneath the pillow, Milan Kundera and Sylvia Plath on a chair in the veranda, the poet Jibanananda Das on the water-filter, and Salvador Dali and James Joyce when chasing a rat into the larder, and if, on top of all this, that someone were to be a Bengali writer, especially a woman writer, would the awakening of her reckless impulse to write a novel like Panty not seem as natural as the stormy winds that accompany rain?”
The author has been described as “the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality into Bengali literature”, and there is indeed a great deal of eroticism in the novel, the juxtapositions are sometimes surreal and always interesting. An unnamed woman moves into an apartment in Kolkata. She has no luggage and seems to be waiting for surgery which may or may not happen and is sometimes in pain. She discovers a discarded pair of leopard print panties in the wardrobe and starts to think about the other woman who once owned them:
“I picked it up. Imported. Soft. Leopard print. At once I wanted to know who the owner was. Many years ago I had found a blue bangle in a bedside drawer in a hotel room. When I took it in my hand it seemed to be dripping blue water. That day, too, I'd felt an urge to find out who the owner was.”
“I slipped into the panty.
What I did not know was that I had actually stepped into a woman.
I slipped into her womanhood.
Her sexuality, her love.
I slipped into her desire, her sinful adultery, her humiliation and sorrow, her shame and loathing. I had entered her life, though I didn’t know it.”
The lives of the two women begin to intertwine and it becomes quite difficult to work out which chapter relates to which woman; assuming of course there are two women; there are no easy answers:
“I found myself standing before a mirror stretching across the wall. The reflection didn’t seem to be mine, exactly, but of another, shadowy figure. I touched my hair. Eerily, the reflection did not”
Bandyopadhyay weaves sexuality seamlessly into the rest of life and the issues covered include poverty, homelessness, religion, Kashmir, terrorism, class, marriage and death. Opposite the apartment lives a homeless family and they figure in a number of chapters providing a contrast with the relative wealth of the woman.
The woman witnesses a suicide, someone jumps from a building:
“At once I made the death my own. “This is my death,” I said. I seemed to have rid myself of a weight I had borne some seven or eight months, and the foot I set down on the pavement felt completely new.”
Each chapter provides a sketch of a situation or incident. The chapter numbers are not sequential. There are twenty-one chapters numbered between one and thirty. There may be a meaning or code there, but if there was I didn’t spot it! This may sound a little surreal or ethereal but it is grounded in the physicality of sex and the female body and the descriptions are frank. Bandyopadhyay said in an interview:
“I had talked openly about orgasms — one of my woman characters says, “I can feel it” — and people told me, “How can you be so open? There are some things that you can’t be so open about.” But I don’t think you have much control over what you write. It flows.”
This is an exploration of female sexuality, with and without men and the two (like the women you could argue as well that there is only one man) nameless men take varyingly active and passive roles.
Sahana or Shamim, the short story at the end is about a married woman who eats fish behind the back of her vegetarian husband knowing that if he finds out it will end their relationship. It is surprisingly visceral with an interesting twist.
I’ve read some awfully bad erotica in my time. This is not in that category. It is many layered and grounded, if somewhat surreal
“If, confined by three or four days of constant, torrential rain, someone were to discover Jack Kerouac beneath the pillow, Milan Kundera and Sylvia Plath on a chair in the veranda, the poet Jibanananda Das on the water-filter, and Salvador Dali and James Joyce when chasing a rat into the larder, and if, on top of all this, that someone were to be a Bengali writer, especially a woman writer, would the awakening of her reckless impulse to write a novel like Panty not seem as natural as the stormy winds that accompany rain?”
The author has been described as “the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality into Bengali literature”, and there is indeed a great deal of eroticism in the novel, the juxtapositions are sometimes surreal and always interesting. An unnamed woman moves into an apartment in Kolkata. She has no luggage and seems to be waiting for surgery which may or may not happen and is sometimes in pain. She discovers a discarded pair of leopard print panties in the wardrobe and starts to think about the other woman who once owned them:
“I picked it up. Imported. Soft. Leopard print. At once I wanted to know who the owner was. Many years ago I had found a blue bangle in a bedside drawer in a hotel room. When I took it in my hand it seemed to be dripping blue water. That day, too, I'd felt an urge to find out who the owner was.”
“I slipped into the panty.
What I did not know was that I had actually stepped into a woman.
I slipped into her womanhood.
Her sexuality, her love.
I slipped into her desire, her sinful adultery, her humiliation and sorrow, her shame and loathing. I had entered her life, though I didn’t know it.”
The lives of the two women begin to intertwine and it becomes quite difficult to work out which chapter relates to which woman; assuming of course there are two women; there are no easy answers:
“I found myself standing before a mirror stretching across the wall. The reflection didn’t seem to be mine, exactly, but of another, shadowy figure. I touched my hair. Eerily, the reflection did not”
Bandyopadhyay weaves sexuality seamlessly into the rest of life and the issues covered include poverty, homelessness, religion, Kashmir, terrorism, class, marriage and death. Opposite the apartment lives a homeless family and they figure in a number of chapters providing a contrast with the relative wealth of the woman.
The woman witnesses a suicide, someone jumps from a building:
“At once I made the death my own. “This is my death,” I said. I seemed to have rid myself of a weight I had borne some seven or eight months, and the foot I set down on the pavement felt completely new.”
Each chapter provides a sketch of a situation or incident. The chapter numbers are not sequential. There are twenty-one chapters numbered between one and thirty. There may be a meaning or code there, but if there was I didn’t spot it! This may sound a little surreal or ethereal but it is grounded in the physicality of sex and the female body and the descriptions are frank. Bandyopadhyay said in an interview:
“I had talked openly about orgasms — one of my woman characters says, “I can feel it” — and people told me, “How can you be so open? There are some things that you can’t be so open about.” But I don’t think you have much control over what you write. It flows.”
This is an exploration of female sexuality, with and without men and the two (like the women you could argue as well that there is only one man) nameless men take varyingly active and passive roles.
Sahana or Shamim, the short story at the end is about a married woman who eats fish behind the back of her vegetarian husband knowing that if he finds out it will end their relationship. It is surprisingly visceral with an interesting twist.
I’ve read some awfully bad erotica in my time. This is not in that category. It is many layered and grounded, if somewhat surreal
September 16, 2025
I found this puzzling, engrossing Bengali novella—first published in 2006, I believe—through its translator, Arunava Sinha, whose gorgeous Tagore translations, collected in Three Women, were, looking back, among the best stories I read in 2023.
Elliptically told in randomly numbered chapters, Panty is the story of two women psychosexually linked by a pair of leopard-print panties, a flat (which I imagined as something like the ominous house in David Lynch’s Lost Highway if it were in Kolkata), and an imprecisely drawn man with, apparently, a very good cock.
Sinha’s translator’s note captures something central to the novella that I suspect will stay with me: “মন mōn. In the ontology that English-reading people have acquired through their books, the heart and the mind are binary—neither word can be used to refer to the other. In Indian languages, however, this word (mōn in Bangla, man in Hindi) represents neither the heart nor the mind exclusively. It takes a position, contextually to the rest of the text, on a continuum between the heart and the mind, between emotion and reason, between feeling and knowing.”
Elliptically told in randomly numbered chapters, Panty is the story of two women psychosexually linked by a pair of leopard-print panties, a flat (which I imagined as something like the ominous house in David Lynch’s Lost Highway if it were in Kolkata), and an imprecisely drawn man with, apparently, a very good cock.
Sinha’s translator’s note captures something central to the novella that I suspect will stay with me: “মন mōn. In the ontology that English-reading people have acquired through their books, the heart and the mind are binary—neither word can be used to refer to the other. In Indian languages, however, this word (mōn in Bangla, man in Hindi) represents neither the heart nor the mind exclusively. It takes a position, contextually to the rest of the text, on a continuum between the heart and the mind, between emotion and reason, between feeling and knowing.”
December 15, 2022
This tale is an examination of one's own sexuality, erotica, religion, poverty, and a host of other underlying, complicated issues that are rarely acknowledged in Indian society.
But because the chapters are interspersed—or rather, there is no connection between them—the reader is left wondering exactly what the book's goal or even its plot is. Sexuality or self-discovery? the common human emotions? Or merely modern, abstract narratives that have a deeper artistic significance?
Hence despite my enjoyment i am gonna give it 2 stars.
But because the chapters are interspersed—or rather, there is no connection between them—the reader is left wondering exactly what the book's goal or even its plot is. Sexuality or self-discovery? the common human emotions? Or merely modern, abstract narratives that have a deeper artistic significance?
Hence despite my enjoyment i am gonna give it 2 stars.
Read
August 21, 2018I'm not quite sure how to rate this book...I liked the dark, feverish, surreal nature of it but I did feel that most of the time I had no clue at all what it was about!! Maybe it's a book that demands a re-read. In any case, I'm leaving it unrated for now.
September 28, 2016
Read more on my blog : https://notchaitea.wordpress.com/
Panty is originally written in Bengali by Sangeeta Bandhyopadhyay (SB) and has been translated into English by Arunava Sinha. SB is described as “the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality into Bengali literature”[1] so I was both intrigued and bit wary of a mills and boonesque horror awaiting me. Instead, I was met with a no-nonsense portrayal of contemporary Indian society, which explores female sexuality as only one of its themes. Among other things Panty deals with issues of nationhood, religion and questions what it means to be a feminist through a complicated relationship between the protagonist and her lover/boyfriend/partner? (we never find out).
It’s a very short book (121 pages) but it took me a good 4 days to read because each chapter was so different from the other that it took a while for me to digest. Each chapter is connected by but not exactly a continuation of the previous. The erotic, or more correctly, the sensual, is an interwoven part of the other themes explored. In short, if this book were an object it would be a patchwork quilt of emotions sown together with the thread of sensuality and love/lust. So I thought I would highlight some themes that stood out to me from the initial reading:
Female Sexuality
Fifty Shades and Co. should sit up and take notes. I hated fifty shades because 1. the hype around it was unnecessary and more importantly 2. it was so apologetic about female sexuality and also tried hard to justify – what to me at times was – a non-consensual relationship with a male lead and his ‘mommy issues’. Anastasia’s character despite being the protagonist was cast entirely through the male gaze of a ‘sexy sheepish librarian’ stereotype (although of course women can also want to be sexy librarians etc. etc.). All this and more is why I disagree with people that pulled out the feminist banner for E.L James.
There is none of this wishy-washyness with SB’s bold and cutting writing which presents an unabashed female gaze. [2] B’s interpretation of sexuality blurs the line between love, lust, the physical and the emotional (as Sinha’s note on the Bengali concept of Mon explains below) and will definitely make you question your comfort zone.
img_9024Feminisms and Relationships
I feel like a lot of talk around feminism has to do with declaring yourself to be a feminist – which is great because even in 2016 this needs to be reiteratedtill we dismantle the patriarchy for both men and women. However, there’s not enough discussion on how hard it is actually to live by the feminist principles we so boldly advocate. Apart from the oft quoted structural barriers[3] there are those social (dare I say ideological?!) barriers[4] that we can impose on our selves, from jobs we do, the things we buy and even to the relationships we seek out.
This is precisely what SB explores through her unnamed female protagonist and her messy relationship. It’s an unconventional and even disappointing love between two people that our protagonist is trying to figure out for herself. You vaguely get the sense that this is an illicit affair with a married or otherwise engaged man. It poses the question, how much of an independent woman are you really if your every move revolves around a relationship that is not even making you happy?
Religion, Otherness and social-inequality
Another short trippy chapter explores religion in contemporary India. Here our protagonist finds herself on a bus surrounded by religious men heading towards an unknown destination. I really connected with this because I worry about the hardline direction that so called ‘hindutva’ is introducing in India. I felt that this particular story highlighted how this increasing hardline trend is pushing out not only ethnic and religious minorities but also women from public spaces.
Panty also explores poverty in the urban metropolitan cities like Kolkatta. Unlike other romantic or self-orientalist versions of India, SB explores problems with its urban poor in a very constructive way. I like the way that she doesn’t go into any flowery language to describe the rich/poor juxtaposition that is rife in metropolitan Indian cities (or anywhere n the world really…). There is no sympathy, rather there is a conversation that is happening through our heroine’s encounters with the street dwellers outside her high rise Kolkatta apartment.
To me, Panty is a great blueprint for the kind of conversations we should be having in coffee shops, in our living rooms, on whatsapp etc. about the state of our feminisms, social-inequality in the urban cities, modern loneliness and much more. Basically, I feel like she is saying I don’t have the answers but here are the right questions, now own it and get on with it!
A bit of context:
Panty, written by Sangeeta Bandhopadhyay in Bengali and had been translated by Arunava Sinha. This particular copy is printed by Tilted Axis Press, a new not-for-profit publisher based in South London. Their mission is to tilt “the axis of world literature from the centre to the margins allowing us to challenge that very division.”I think they’ve got off to a great start! I would really recommend checking out their website, I’ve already pre-ordered their next book! http://www.tiltedaxispress.com/
[1] http://www.tiltedaxispress.com/panty/
[2] Laura Mulvey’s psychoanalytic film theory points out that the female character/body in most narratives are constructed through and for the ‘male gaze’ or the heterosexual man’s pleasure . While this point is valid it doesn’t leave much space for female agency or the possibility of expressing a female sexuality or gaze.
[3] To name one in a million, the gender pay gap in UK today is 18%, which widens for women with children! https://www.theguardian.com/money/201...
Panty is originally written in Bengali by Sangeeta Bandhyopadhyay (SB) and has been translated into English by Arunava Sinha. SB is described as “the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality into Bengali literature”[1] so I was both intrigued and bit wary of a mills and boonesque horror awaiting me. Instead, I was met with a no-nonsense portrayal of contemporary Indian society, which explores female sexuality as only one of its themes. Among other things Panty deals with issues of nationhood, religion and questions what it means to be a feminist through a complicated relationship between the protagonist and her lover/boyfriend/partner? (we never find out).
It’s a very short book (121 pages) but it took me a good 4 days to read because each chapter was so different from the other that it took a while for me to digest. Each chapter is connected by but not exactly a continuation of the previous. The erotic, or more correctly, the sensual, is an interwoven part of the other themes explored. In short, if this book were an object it would be a patchwork quilt of emotions sown together with the thread of sensuality and love/lust. So I thought I would highlight some themes that stood out to me from the initial reading:
Female Sexuality
Fifty Shades and Co. should sit up and take notes. I hated fifty shades because 1. the hype around it was unnecessary and more importantly 2. it was so apologetic about female sexuality and also tried hard to justify – what to me at times was – a non-consensual relationship with a male lead and his ‘mommy issues’. Anastasia’s character despite being the protagonist was cast entirely through the male gaze of a ‘sexy sheepish librarian’ stereotype (although of course women can also want to be sexy librarians etc. etc.). All this and more is why I disagree with people that pulled out the feminist banner for E.L James.
There is none of this wishy-washyness with SB’s bold and cutting writing which presents an unabashed female gaze. [2] B’s interpretation of sexuality blurs the line between love, lust, the physical and the emotional (as Sinha’s note on the Bengali concept of Mon explains below) and will definitely make you question your comfort zone.
img_9024Feminisms and Relationships
I feel like a lot of talk around feminism has to do with declaring yourself to be a feminist – which is great because even in 2016 this needs to be reiteratedtill we dismantle the patriarchy for both men and women. However, there’s not enough discussion on how hard it is actually to live by the feminist principles we so boldly advocate. Apart from the oft quoted structural barriers[3] there are those social (dare I say ideological?!) barriers[4] that we can impose on our selves, from jobs we do, the things we buy and even to the relationships we seek out.
This is precisely what SB explores through her unnamed female protagonist and her messy relationship. It’s an unconventional and even disappointing love between two people that our protagonist is trying to figure out for herself. You vaguely get the sense that this is an illicit affair with a married or otherwise engaged man. It poses the question, how much of an independent woman are you really if your every move revolves around a relationship that is not even making you happy?
Religion, Otherness and social-inequality
Another short trippy chapter explores religion in contemporary India. Here our protagonist finds herself on a bus surrounded by religious men heading towards an unknown destination. I really connected with this because I worry about the hardline direction that so called ‘hindutva’ is introducing in India. I felt that this particular story highlighted how this increasing hardline trend is pushing out not only ethnic and religious minorities but also women from public spaces.
Panty also explores poverty in the urban metropolitan cities like Kolkatta. Unlike other romantic or self-orientalist versions of India, SB explores problems with its urban poor in a very constructive way. I like the way that she doesn’t go into any flowery language to describe the rich/poor juxtaposition that is rife in metropolitan Indian cities (or anywhere n the world really…). There is no sympathy, rather there is a conversation that is happening through our heroine’s encounters with the street dwellers outside her high rise Kolkatta apartment.
To me, Panty is a great blueprint for the kind of conversations we should be having in coffee shops, in our living rooms, on whatsapp etc. about the state of our feminisms, social-inequality in the urban cities, modern loneliness and much more. Basically, I feel like she is saying I don’t have the answers but here are the right questions, now own it and get on with it!
A bit of context:
Panty, written by Sangeeta Bandhopadhyay in Bengali and had been translated by Arunava Sinha. This particular copy is printed by Tilted Axis Press, a new not-for-profit publisher based in South London. Their mission is to tilt “the axis of world literature from the centre to the margins allowing us to challenge that very division.”I think they’ve got off to a great start! I would really recommend checking out their website, I’ve already pre-ordered their next book! http://www.tiltedaxispress.com/
[1] http://www.tiltedaxispress.com/panty/
[2] Laura Mulvey’s psychoanalytic film theory points out that the female character/body in most narratives are constructed through and for the ‘male gaze’ or the heterosexual man’s pleasure . While this point is valid it doesn’t leave much space for female agency or the possibility of expressing a female sexuality or gaze.
[3] To name one in a million, the gender pay gap in UK today is 18%, which widens for women with children! https://www.theguardian.com/money/201...
Read
September 4, 2020To begin with, I was confused reading these two novellas as a lot of the reviews I had read mentioned a longer novella, Panty, and a shorter story. My edition, however, starts out with Hypnosis which is twice the size of Panty, which came second. I think the edition published by Tilted Axis is the one which contains Panty and a short story, and mine is the Penguin India edition.
.
Panty is a much stranger and more compelling story, to my mind. A woman moves to a guest house to await surgery and finds a pair of discarded, used underwear in the wardrobe. She has brought very few possessions with her and when her period catches her short one day, she's left with no other option than to wear the discarded underwear. When she puts them on, the sex lives of both women begin to intertwine in a surreal dreamlike sequence.
.
Although the translation from Bengali by Arunava Sinha was good, I still found some parts of both novellas somewhat opaque, like I was grasping in the dark. Bandyopadhyay has been credited with 'reintroducing hardcore sexuality into Bengali literature', and Panty caused controversy when it was originally published for its explicit portrayal of feminine sexuality and desire.
.
The surreal feeling of Panty is heightened by the seemingly random order of the chapters, all numbered but not in order. We see fleeting episodes in a life, or two lives, it's hard to tell. A little boy lost in a house fire, a lice outbreak, a dreamlike encounter on a bus where the woman is the only person of her religion on it. It is difficult, in both novellas, to separate dream from reality, and then in Panty, the lives of two women.
.
I'm glad I read both novellas, even if sometimes I was left confused, but I've been looking into Abandon and I think that one sounds like something I'd enjoy more! I’m also making it a 2021 goal (don’t pretend like you’re not thinking of yours) to read at least one book translated from an Indian language a month and I’m excited!
.
Panty is a much stranger and more compelling story, to my mind. A woman moves to a guest house to await surgery and finds a pair of discarded, used underwear in the wardrobe. She has brought very few possessions with her and when her period catches her short one day, she's left with no other option than to wear the discarded underwear. When she puts them on, the sex lives of both women begin to intertwine in a surreal dreamlike sequence.
.
Although the translation from Bengali by Arunava Sinha was good, I still found some parts of both novellas somewhat opaque, like I was grasping in the dark. Bandyopadhyay has been credited with 'reintroducing hardcore sexuality into Bengali literature', and Panty caused controversy when it was originally published for its explicit portrayal of feminine sexuality and desire.
.
The surreal feeling of Panty is heightened by the seemingly random order of the chapters, all numbered but not in order. We see fleeting episodes in a life, or two lives, it's hard to tell. A little boy lost in a house fire, a lice outbreak, a dreamlike encounter on a bus where the woman is the only person of her religion on it. It is difficult, in both novellas, to separate dream from reality, and then in Panty, the lives of two women.
.
I'm glad I read both novellas, even if sometimes I was left confused, but I've been looking into Abandon and I think that one sounds like something I'd enjoy more! I’m also making it a 2021 goal (don’t pretend like you’re not thinking of yours) to read at least one book translated from an Indian language a month and I’m excited!
January 7, 2022
This surrealist and feverish novella jumps between personal perspective of our main narrator, and the woman who’s underwear she finds in the new apartment she moves in to. ‘Panty’ is a story of sexuality and darkness, but above all it is a story reliant on narrative. The reading experience feels as though you too are in this haze of skewed reality. 4/5 stars for this bewitching novella.
August 7, 2018
3.5 stars.
This one has me stumped. On the one hand, so wonderfully atmospheric – I love Kolkata and its vast magnificence with old buildings, memorials, the Hooghly river, Park Street (and I did feel as though I was stuck in a flat observing the city from my balcony while I read this). I also liked the section on secularism and the frank exploration of female sexuality. On the other hand, the dream like structure of the vignettes was disorientating; this deserves a reread. I am interested to read her novel Abandon, also published by Tilted Axis Press.
This one has me stumped. On the one hand, so wonderfully atmospheric – I love Kolkata and its vast magnificence with old buildings, memorials, the Hooghly river, Park Street (and I did feel as though I was stuck in a flat observing the city from my balcony while I read this). I also liked the section on secularism and the frank exploration of female sexuality. On the other hand, the dream like structure of the vignettes was disorientating; this deserves a reread. I am interested to read her novel Abandon, also published by Tilted Axis Press.
April 25, 2021
Panty by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, translated by Arunava Sinha comprises of two novellas: a longer one called Hypnosis and Panty being the other. Both are non linear in style and spirit, and have women at the center of the narrative who are in situations they want to break out of. Both touches on the theme of sexual liberation vis a vis the ties it can muddle up further.
In Hypnosis, the main protagonist Ilona is a woman who has had a divorce, works as a journalist on a night shift and with an intellect that is sharp and independent. And yet, she gets swayed into a relationship with a man who is not available. In Panty, we never know the woman’s name even as we read her deepest guilt in life and the way she has to accept the situation she is in, again the man being unavailable. The core at the heart of both the stories and the two women boils down to what is it about a woman’s ties to a man that makes sense or not.
The author uses the physical and sexual pull between men and women to examine a natural biological instinct called sex that has been made taboo or romanticized, to drive home how women are more tied down by sex and what it is portrayed to be. The writing is erotic in part, pulsating and throbbing with sensuousness, then deeply philosophical and probing in its intensity. It is trippy and provocative, certainly not something that will keep readers comfortable but recommended if you are up to explore new voices out of your zone. I was thoroughly gobsmacked by the author's The Yogini when I read it earlier and am glad that it is exactly how Panty has left me with.
In Hypnosis, the main protagonist Ilona is a woman who has had a divorce, works as a journalist on a night shift and with an intellect that is sharp and independent. And yet, she gets swayed into a relationship with a man who is not available. In Panty, we never know the woman’s name even as we read her deepest guilt in life and the way she has to accept the situation she is in, again the man being unavailable. The core at the heart of both the stories and the two women boils down to what is it about a woman’s ties to a man that makes sense or not.
The author uses the physical and sexual pull between men and women to examine a natural biological instinct called sex that has been made taboo or romanticized, to drive home how women are more tied down by sex and what it is portrayed to be. The writing is erotic in part, pulsating and throbbing with sensuousness, then deeply philosophical and probing in its intensity. It is trippy and provocative, certainly not something that will keep readers comfortable but recommended if you are up to explore new voices out of your zone. I was thoroughly gobsmacked by the author's The Yogini when I read it earlier and am glad that it is exactly how Panty has left me with.
August 1, 2016
She “who had no name, no identity, no family, no city or village, no property or assets” arrives in the city in the middle of the night and is put up in a large dark apartment by a mysterious man. The only thing left in the apartment (there is no light, our narrator is in darkness metaphorically and physically), is a pair of stained leopard skin panties. Due to the onset of our protagonist’s period and with no other clothes our mystery woman puts in the panties;
I slipped into the panty.
What I did not know was that I had actually stepped into a woman.
I slipped into her womanhood.
Her sexuality, her love.
I slipped into her desire, her sinful adultery, her humiliation and sorrow, her shame and loathing. I had entered her life, though I didn’t know it. I even slipped into her defeat and her withdrawal. I slipped into her nation too, in that moment. Trite thoughts about her world passed through my mind. How fine the material was, I reflected. Soft. A perfect fit. As though tailored especially for me. After putting it one, I was no longer repulsed. I lay down, spreading my hair out on the pillow. Although I do not admit that I fell asleep, it is undeniable that I was woken up by a series of sounds in the room.
Chapter numbers are random (or are they) starting at Chapter 29, moving to 15, then 11, back to 18 etc. with not all numbers covered this is very much a fractured tale of a fractured nation, India. Whilst fractured this book is also, very much like the Tilted Axis agenda, a work that plays with “spaces”. Opening with a definition from the translator of the Bangla word “mōn”;
In the ontology that English-reading people have acquired through their books, the heart and the mind are binary – neither word can be used to refer to the other. In Indian languages, however, this word (mōn in Bangla, man in Hindi) represents neither the heart nor the mind exclusively. It takes a position, contextually to the rest of the text, on a continuum between the heart and the mind, between emotion and reason, between feeling and knowing.”
- Arunava Sinha
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
I slipped into the panty.
What I did not know was that I had actually stepped into a woman.
I slipped into her womanhood.
Her sexuality, her love.
I slipped into her desire, her sinful adultery, her humiliation and sorrow, her shame and loathing. I had entered her life, though I didn’t know it. I even slipped into her defeat and her withdrawal. I slipped into her nation too, in that moment. Trite thoughts about her world passed through my mind. How fine the material was, I reflected. Soft. A perfect fit. As though tailored especially for me. After putting it one, I was no longer repulsed. I lay down, spreading my hair out on the pillow. Although I do not admit that I fell asleep, it is undeniable that I was woken up by a series of sounds in the room.
Chapter numbers are random (or are they) starting at Chapter 29, moving to 15, then 11, back to 18 etc. with not all numbers covered this is very much a fractured tale of a fractured nation, India. Whilst fractured this book is also, very much like the Tilted Axis agenda, a work that plays with “spaces”. Opening with a definition from the translator of the Bangla word “mōn”;
In the ontology that English-reading people have acquired through their books, the heart and the mind are binary – neither word can be used to refer to the other. In Indian languages, however, this word (mōn in Bangla, man in Hindi) represents neither the heart nor the mind exclusively. It takes a position, contextually to the rest of the text, on a continuum between the heart and the mind, between emotion and reason, between feeling and knowing.”
- Arunava Sinha
For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...
January 23, 2018
Incomprehensible, which made this unpleasant reading. Although I did notice as I got to the end that the chapters are misnumbered: I wonder what would have happened if I had read them in the designated number order, rather than in a traditional left to right fashion. That's an interesting idea - a book that can be read in more than one direction - though unfortunately this wasn't the sort of book that inspired any desire for a re-read.
August 20, 2016
The Tilted Axis cover of this book is infinitely better. I can't imagine a piece of experimental fiction written by a man would get this corny a cover. but ignore it because: this prose poem of a book is a series of shuffled, surreal, bruising vignettes. It's provocative and unusual and definitely worthwhile.
dnf
May 1, 2021Okay I have some conflicted feelings regarding this one. Read the first novella and oh my god it made no sense. No fucking sense. I kept wondering and still can't seem to get round to it!
March 12, 2019
2.5 stars. An odd little book about some odd women. It made me uncomfortable actually.
December 17, 2021
Panty contains two fiction pieces - “Panty“ and “Sahana, or Shamim“. Inspired by the book’s non-chronological and fragmentary nature, this review will start with the last story.
“Sahana, or Shamim“ reads almost as a revenge tale, fueled by a woman’s visceral resentment towards her husband for prohibiting her to eat fish. In no more than 10 pages the author manages to convey the puissance of a relentlessly rebellious hatred. Betrayal, self-preservation, faith, desire and guilt are scrutinized with remarkable authenticity. Enough said, this alone should be good enough reason to get this book.
The main story “Panty“ has awarded Bandyopadhyay comparisons to Elena Ferrante’s debut novel “Troubling love”, where pieces of lingerie take the center stage of the narrative. Even if I admittedly haven’t read the latter, I am no stranger to Ferrante’s work and can’t help finding the comparison overly simplistic. Whereas Ferrante’s characters are often deeply rooted in their familial ties, Bandyopadhyay’s protagonist floats in time and space, almost as a blank canvas that is painted according to fragmented experiences of mostly solitude and self-reflection.
The story’s structure might leave many bewildered and unsure of its intent, as the chapters seem unorderly thrown together. That said, what is life if not fragments of one’s existence? The idea is not to follow the chapter numbers to make sense of the story, but rather accept the quiet chaos to vividly experience multiple entities that inhabit one’s single mind.
Panty captures the ultimate inherent urban loneliness through an effortless fever dream prose that remains lyrical and intimate, even through all ruthlessness.
Its callousness and candor have at times reminded of Burnt sugar, while the deep existentialism marbled into these lines were at a Lispector level of prowess.
Bandyopadhyay’s words tacitly ignited an electrical current within myself. The kind of rare stimulation only sustained when something touches you so acutely that transcends intellect.
Unflinching, meditative, urgent, ethereal, sensorial and certainly indelible.
“Sahana, or Shamim“ reads almost as a revenge tale, fueled by a woman’s visceral resentment towards her husband for prohibiting her to eat fish. In no more than 10 pages the author manages to convey the puissance of a relentlessly rebellious hatred. Betrayal, self-preservation, faith, desire and guilt are scrutinized with remarkable authenticity. Enough said, this alone should be good enough reason to get this book.
The main story “Panty“ has awarded Bandyopadhyay comparisons to Elena Ferrante’s debut novel “Troubling love”, where pieces of lingerie take the center stage of the narrative. Even if I admittedly haven’t read the latter, I am no stranger to Ferrante’s work and can’t help finding the comparison overly simplistic. Whereas Ferrante’s characters are often deeply rooted in their familial ties, Bandyopadhyay’s protagonist floats in time and space, almost as a blank canvas that is painted according to fragmented experiences of mostly solitude and self-reflection.
The story’s structure might leave many bewildered and unsure of its intent, as the chapters seem unorderly thrown together. That said, what is life if not fragments of one’s existence? The idea is not to follow the chapter numbers to make sense of the story, but rather accept the quiet chaos to vividly experience multiple entities that inhabit one’s single mind.
Panty captures the ultimate inherent urban loneliness through an effortless fever dream prose that remains lyrical and intimate, even through all ruthlessness.
Its callousness and candor have at times reminded of Burnt sugar, while the deep existentialism marbled into these lines were at a Lispector level of prowess.
Bandyopadhyay’s words tacitly ignited an electrical current within myself. The kind of rare stimulation only sustained when something touches you so acutely that transcends intellect.
Unflinching, meditative, urgent, ethereal, sensorial and certainly indelible.
April 1, 2017
This slight novel contains two stories within it's 122 pages.
The first is the main story Panty and is about a woment with no name, friends, family to mention of arriving and living in a new city in a flat owned by a man we don't know whilst she is awaiting an operation.
The book is based in Kolcata, India and at times as you are absorbed into the poetic prose, you can feel the heat emanating from the page.
The chapters are composed in a unique style out of sequence which give us moments of viseral beauty, tenderness and sexual individuality. In equal measure this small story had not only the depth and power to absorb you, it could also leave you feeling disarmed and disorientated.
Ultimately this book deals with a number of interesting questions being dealt with by Bengali and Indian women at the current time around feminism, ownership of their sexuality, there religion and there place within the nations identity in such a poignant way it was a thoroughly enjoyable read.
The author Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay released this initially in Bengali now translated fantastically into english by Arunava Sinha and published for all to enjoy by Tilted/Axis press, I cannot wait to read her further translated works being released later in 2017.
The first is the main story Panty and is about a woment with no name, friends, family to mention of arriving and living in a new city in a flat owned by a man we don't know whilst she is awaiting an operation.
The book is based in Kolcata, India and at times as you are absorbed into the poetic prose, you can feel the heat emanating from the page.
The chapters are composed in a unique style out of sequence which give us moments of viseral beauty, tenderness and sexual individuality. In equal measure this small story had not only the depth and power to absorb you, it could also leave you feeling disarmed and disorientated.
Ultimately this book deals with a number of interesting questions being dealt with by Bengali and Indian women at the current time around feminism, ownership of their sexuality, there religion and there place within the nations identity in such a poignant way it was a thoroughly enjoyable read.
The author Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay released this initially in Bengali now translated fantastically into english by Arunava Sinha and published for all to enjoy by Tilted/Axis press, I cannot wait to read her further translated works being released later in 2017.
August 9, 2022
This contains two novellas - one of which, the titular 'Panty', follows an unnamed narrator who moves into a new apartment where she discovers a leopard print underwear belonging to the former tenant. The voice of the two women muddle together on the page until it becomes impossible to distinguish between the two. A lot of compelling conversations around the female body, autonomy, sexuality, loneliness, trauma, morality, religion and so on. This isn't a perfect book but it's quite thought provoking.
The other novella follows a woman in a relationship that restricts her dietary preferences. It again invokes the theme of female autonomy and submission.
The other novella follows a woman in a relationship that restricts her dietary preferences. It again invokes the theme of female autonomy and submission.
August 4, 2021
"Actually, was religion not simply a memory? A memory of the dreams of past lives"
Panty is a collection of 2 novellas, "Panty" and "Shana, or Shamim", both written by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay and translated by Arunava Sinha. Panty follows the story of a nameless woman who moved into an apartment in Kolkata while she waits to undergo an unspecified surgery. She found a panty in the wardrobe of the apartment and was forced to use it when she had her period. Surprisingly, upon wearing the panty, she felt like she was drawn into the life of the previous owner of the panty. We then follow a series of fragmented and surreal examinations of the poor side of Kolkota and its atmosphere, female sexuality, desire, eroticism, love, and lust which have the effect of driving one into madness. Bandyopadhyay's status as the first female Bengali writer to explore female sexuality is formidable. Her language and portrayal of women and their reconciliation with sexuality, eroticism, and religion through a surreal premise are definitely praiseworthy.
We then follow the story of a woman in "Shana, or Shamim" who continues to eat fish despite her husband's ban of her doing so due to him being a vegetarian. Here, Bandyopadhyay explores a woman's sacrifice in love, marriage in order to please her husband. The question being: must a woman sacrifice her freedom and be chained for life in order to seek love and marriage? Panty is definitely not for everyone. Though a short collection, it requires one's full attention to devour the book as it employs a plotless and dream-like premise, with so many feminist values being inculcated. Panty is my first #womenintranslationmonth read and it deserves a 4/5 rating. I would highly recommend this to fans of surrealist literature!
Panty is a collection of 2 novellas, "Panty" and "Shana, or Shamim", both written by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay and translated by Arunava Sinha. Panty follows the story of a nameless woman who moved into an apartment in Kolkata while she waits to undergo an unspecified surgery. She found a panty in the wardrobe of the apartment and was forced to use it when she had her period. Surprisingly, upon wearing the panty, she felt like she was drawn into the life of the previous owner of the panty. We then follow a series of fragmented and surreal examinations of the poor side of Kolkota and its atmosphere, female sexuality, desire, eroticism, love, and lust which have the effect of driving one into madness. Bandyopadhyay's status as the first female Bengali writer to explore female sexuality is formidable. Her language and portrayal of women and their reconciliation with sexuality, eroticism, and religion through a surreal premise are definitely praiseworthy.
We then follow the story of a woman in "Shana, or Shamim" who continues to eat fish despite her husband's ban of her doing so due to him being a vegetarian. Here, Bandyopadhyay explores a woman's sacrifice in love, marriage in order to please her husband. The question being: must a woman sacrifice her freedom and be chained for life in order to seek love and marriage? Panty is definitely not for everyone. Though a short collection, it requires one's full attention to devour the book as it employs a plotless and dream-like premise, with so many feminist values being inculcated. Panty is my first #womenintranslationmonth read and it deserves a 4/5 rating. I would highly recommend this to fans of surrealist literature!
May 6, 2022
3.5 stars
A short and occasionally confounding book which probably requires a reread primarily because of the changing perspectives that can make it confusing as to whose thoughts we are following. A woman moves into an apartment in a big city and on finding a pair of panties left behind by another, imagines this woman’s life with the man who is taking care of her now as she prepares for surgery. Much has been made of the erotic nature of the book in the society in which it was written but this wasn’t really the thing that stood out for me. The wanderings through the city and the interaction with the homeless family in front of the apartment block were more interesting as were the reflections on religion, sexuality, loneliness and belonging. There remains a lot it seems that remains unsaid in the relationships between this man and each of these women or perhaps what can’t be said and this vagueness adds to the mysterious and melancholy quality of the story.
There is also a short story in this edition called Sahana or Shahim about a woman taking revenge on her husband forbidding her to eat fish by doing exactly what he doesn't want and more. It's a story that makes me want to read more of Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay's short stories in its structure and tone but at the moment it seems as though only her novels are available in English.
A short and occasionally confounding book which probably requires a reread primarily because of the changing perspectives that can make it confusing as to whose thoughts we are following. A woman moves into an apartment in a big city and on finding a pair of panties left behind by another, imagines this woman’s life with the man who is taking care of her now as she prepares for surgery. Much has been made of the erotic nature of the book in the society in which it was written but this wasn’t really the thing that stood out for me. The wanderings through the city and the interaction with the homeless family in front of the apartment block were more interesting as were the reflections on religion, sexuality, loneliness and belonging. There remains a lot it seems that remains unsaid in the relationships between this man and each of these women or perhaps what can’t be said and this vagueness adds to the mysterious and melancholy quality of the story.
There is also a short story in this edition called Sahana or Shahim about a woman taking revenge on her husband forbidding her to eat fish by doing exactly what he doesn't want and more. It's a story that makes me want to read more of Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay's short stories in its structure and tone but at the moment it seems as though only her novels are available in English.
May 20, 2017
Every year I try to read a few translated novels in order to vary my reading but I always end up being dissatisfied. Panty was no exception.
A lady moves into a flat and finds a used panty in a wardrobe. When she puts it on, she begins to imagine the previous owner who wore it. This leads to a tale fusing sexuality and religion. Eventually the previous owner's life is fused with the current owner until the truth comes out and the offending underwear has to be disposed of.
I didn't mind the translation and it is an original story but I had trouble connecting with the book, the writing and the characters were not fully fleshed. I appreciate the inner message about suffering and sexuality but I felt there could have been more depth.
I'm sure that fans of translated fiction will love this but it left me a bit cold.
A lady moves into a flat and finds a used panty in a wardrobe. When she puts it on, she begins to imagine the previous owner who wore it. This leads to a tale fusing sexuality and religion. Eventually the previous owner's life is fused with the current owner until the truth comes out and the offending underwear has to be disposed of.
I didn't mind the translation and it is an original story but I had trouble connecting with the book, the writing and the characters were not fully fleshed. I appreciate the inner message about suffering and sexuality but I felt there could have been more depth.
I'm sure that fans of translated fiction will love this but it left me a bit cold.
April 3, 2025
I hadn’t heard of this book until I had researched eroticism in Bengali literature. Lo and behold: this translation came highly recommended. It’s highly sexually charged from a feminist perspective, exploring the role of body and mind in sexual relationships. It also takes a look at religion, poverty, and other underlying, rarely discussed issues in our society.
The stories are surreal yet bizarrely grounded in the physical realm. For example, the discovery of the panty and the subsequent usage of it comes across like a dream-like sequence that becomes real. More importantly, the author adds a subliminal layer of unreliable-ness to the story through ambiguity and a sense of mental unease.
Overall, a decent read if a bit jarring due to translation issues.
The stories are surreal yet bizarrely grounded in the physical realm. For example, the discovery of the panty and the subsequent usage of it comes across like a dream-like sequence that becomes real. More importantly, the author adds a subliminal layer of unreliable-ness to the story through ambiguity and a sense of mental unease.
Overall, a decent read if a bit jarring due to translation issues.
May 24, 2017
Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, 'the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality to Bengali literature.'
This was dark, explicit, and a bit weird (usually positive adjectives for me), however I'm not entirely convinced that the writing was up to par. However, I totally understand that this could be down to the translation and not Bandyopadhyay herself.
This was dark, explicit, and a bit weird (usually positive adjectives for me), however I'm not entirely convinced that the writing was up to par. However, I totally understand that this could be down to the translation and not Bandyopadhyay herself.
June 5, 2017
A solid 2.5 rounded up. I did enjoy this. Didn't really understand much of what was going on mind you, but liked some parts all the same.
February 4, 2018
Kind of a weird reading experience. This is actually 2 novellas, but the jacket description on my copy doesn't mention that, and only describes the 2nd story. So I'm reading and it keeps not matching what I expect it to be about. As it turns out, I actually enjoyed the first novella more. Both pieces had surreal aspects, but I found more to engage with in the character in the first, maybe because her details were just a little more colored in. Definitely a book with interesting things to think about for a long while after. I'm glad I read it.
August 10, 2021
A collection of stream-of-consciousness vignettes (though whose consciousness we are observing is not always clear), the story behind 'Panty' often struggles to emerge, which is a shame as there were parts of this tale that I found rather absorbing. The rest - and especially the wooden dialogue - did not work for me.
March 4, 2023
I read this in one sitting on a Saturday morning and really enjoyed it. Very sensory writing in a pleasing series of vignettes which totally absorbed me.
April 20, 2019
A haunting novella of both intensely introspective inner life and fetishistically detailed description of the small things of physical reality. At times the two spheres merge in a kind of magical realism. The chapters are numbered out of order and even rearranging them mentally brings no more chronological clarity. The identities of the nameless main protagonists in Kolkata also remain blurred and dream-like.
This is not so much literary fiction as it is full-on modernist literature. It’s only the second book I’ve read by an Indian author that was not written in English. It broadened my horizons beyond the anglophone elite, published for an international market. It is totally and uttely not written in any kind of othered or orientalising voice; the ultimate antidote to orientalising visions of India (either imagined as spiritually rich or corruptly impoverished). It also presents a starkly different feminine subjectivity to what appears in mainstream representations of Indian or, for that matter, any kind of national “woman”. The closest comparison I can think of is Charlotte Gilman Perkins’ Yellow Wallpaper or Margaret Atwood’s Survival - plus very explicit sex.
A flavour of the prose style and philosophical rigour:
“She felt tears welling up again, and allowed them to fall one by one into
the lips of your penis, like individual strands of pubic hair.”
“Why did I believe that the identity of an object should be sought in its insecurities?”
“For she considered religion as something akin to art — both remake that which already exists in natural form.”
And here a passage that will resonate with my twitter friends (from a delicious chapter about head lice):
“I’d been thinking of going shopping in the evening. But I’d showed no signs of going. I managed five days of procrastination. The itching intensified.”
Format: Kindle. I found one typo and one formatting error, otherwise very good.
Published by Tilted Axis Press (not-for-profit translations). Funded with lottery and Arts Council England money.
Translated from Bengali (Bangla) by Arunava Sinha (2014). First published in 2006 as “Panty O Annyano Galpo”.
Read for the Goodreads Reading Women 2019 challenge, rubric “South Asian author”.
This is not so much literary fiction as it is full-on modernist literature. It’s only the second book I’ve read by an Indian author that was not written in English. It broadened my horizons beyond the anglophone elite, published for an international market. It is totally and uttely not written in any kind of othered or orientalising voice; the ultimate antidote to orientalising visions of India (either imagined as spiritually rich or corruptly impoverished). It also presents a starkly different feminine subjectivity to what appears in mainstream representations of Indian or, for that matter, any kind of national “woman”. The closest comparison I can think of is Charlotte Gilman Perkins’ Yellow Wallpaper or Margaret Atwood’s Survival - plus very explicit sex.
A flavour of the prose style and philosophical rigour:
“She felt tears welling up again, and allowed them to fall one by one into
the lips of your penis, like individual strands of pubic hair.”
“Why did I believe that the identity of an object should be sought in its insecurities?”
“For she considered religion as something akin to art — both remake that which already exists in natural form.”
And here a passage that will resonate with my twitter friends (from a delicious chapter about head lice):
“I’d been thinking of going shopping in the evening. But I’d showed no signs of going. I managed five days of procrastination. The itching intensified.”
Format: Kindle. I found one typo and one formatting error, otherwise very good.
Published by Tilted Axis Press (not-for-profit translations). Funded with lottery and Arts Council England money.
Translated from Bengali (Bangla) by Arunava Sinha (2014). First published in 2006 as “Panty O Annyano Galpo”.
Read for the Goodreads Reading Women 2019 challenge, rubric “South Asian author”.
March 6, 2019
I hated this book basically all the way til the end and then I loved it, maybe? I definitely loved the ending, but I don’t know if that redeems the whole book for me? If I’d known before I began reading that this was organised non-chronologically (possibly?) I definitely would not have picked it up. It wasn’t until about the third chapter (ch. 15 or 11) that I had the idea that the numbers heading each section might be chapters arranged non-chronologically (but not entirely, because some numbers are missing). I hate this as a device, but the book is short and the writing is pretty, so I kept reading by trying to keep a rough sequence of events i mind and eye out for thematic links between sections that would justify such a (to me) jarring presentation. It didn’t really come together until the final presented chapter, where Bandyopadhyay clarifies who you, she and I are, something I’d struggled with the whole fucking time. So I guess mission accomplished? (BUT AT WHAT COST!) And then the final, final story at the end, Sahana, or Shamim, was dope. I audibly gasped at the last line and Jeff looked over to see what was up and I had to own up to what a fucking nerd I am and admit that I’d been overwhelmed by witnessing something really cool.
Because it is so short, and I did find the writing striking, I tried to immediately attempt a reread, this time flipping all over the place to read it chronologically. This did not work. So I’m very, very stumped about the section headers. If I hadn’t read the book cover summary, something I often skip, I would not have understood anything, plot-wise. It would’ve just been pretty, pretty words.
After trying to sort out my feelings through this review and by talking it over with Hana and Mary, I think I love this book? I’m gonna rate it high, because it really got under my skin and I can’t shake it and that’s ultimately how I like my art. I also think it might’ve lost some cohesion in the translation process, maybe? At least I wouldn’t know, so I’m gonna give the issues I have with the format some benefit of the doubt there. I would definitely read more of Bandyopadhyay’s work.
Because it is so short, and I did find the writing striking, I tried to immediately attempt a reread, this time flipping all over the place to read it chronologically. This did not work. So I’m very, very stumped about the section headers. If I hadn’t read the book cover summary, something I often skip, I would not have understood anything, plot-wise. It would’ve just been pretty, pretty words.
After trying to sort out my feelings through this review and by talking it over with Hana and Mary, I think I love this book? I’m gonna rate it high, because it really got under my skin and I can’t shake it and that’s ultimately how I like my art. I also think it might’ve lost some cohesion in the translation process, maybe? At least I wouldn’t know, so I’m gonna give the issues I have with the format some benefit of the doubt there. I would definitely read more of Bandyopadhyay’s work.
March 29, 2021
This review is taken from my IG account @descanto
Panty tells a story about a lady who moves into the guest house and she finds out a pair of discarded and used undies in the wardrobe. She later wears those undies and since then she starts living in a 'time-machine.' She starts to have the vision about a woman and surprisingly, the sex lives between these two women interwine in the dream-alike-time-machine sequence.
I indeed faced some difficulties in reading the first parts of the book. The plot is not in sequence and they seem like keep changing the narrator which is confusing. The transition between two women goes back and forth and it does not help at all. Yet one of the important things higlighted here is the way Ms. Bandyopadhyay portrays womanhood through dark eroticism. Interesting ha!
In most books, men will likely be the ones taking control in the sperm-soaking department. However, Ms. B shows an opposite fact. The female sexual expression which is often repressed in the so-considered (Asian) traditional society is being explored here. She shows her readers that sexual desire is the purest form in the human life and women do possess it as well. Women do have desire and there is nothing wrong with women who are sexually liberated or men whose penis cannot get a hard-on (It's pathethic but sheesh happens too tho and there's nothing wrong with it).
I also enjoy reading the second novella too. It is still an interesting read. The notion about religion and one's belief is well-narrated even it's just a short novella.
Anyhow, I am glad I read both novellas and I thank @arunavasinha for translating this book and making it digestable for us- the readers to read. I look forward to reading more of Arunava Singa's and Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay's works.
Thank you for this awesome gift you blessed me with, @post_santa .
BOOK 1: PANTY BY SANGEETA BANDYOPADHYAY
Translated by: Arunava Sinha
📍 India
Published by @tiltedaxisbooks @tiltedaxispress
Panty tells a story about a lady who moves into the guest house and she finds out a pair of discarded and used undies in the wardrobe. She later wears those undies and since then she starts living in a 'time-machine.' She starts to have the vision about a woman and surprisingly, the sex lives between these two women interwine in the dream-alike-time-machine sequence.
I indeed faced some difficulties in reading the first parts of the book. The plot is not in sequence and they seem like keep changing the narrator which is confusing. The transition between two women goes back and forth and it does not help at all. Yet one of the important things higlighted here is the way Ms. Bandyopadhyay portrays womanhood through dark eroticism. Interesting ha!
In most books, men will likely be the ones taking control in the sperm-soaking department. However, Ms. B shows an opposite fact. The female sexual expression which is often repressed in the so-considered (Asian) traditional society is being explored here. She shows her readers that sexual desire is the purest form in the human life and women do possess it as well. Women do have desire and there is nothing wrong with women who are sexually liberated or men whose penis cannot get a hard-on (It's pathethic but sheesh happens too tho and there's nothing wrong with it).
I also enjoy reading the second novella too. It is still an interesting read. The notion about religion and one's belief is well-narrated even it's just a short novella.
Anyhow, I am glad I read both novellas and I thank @arunavasinha for translating this book and making it digestable for us- the readers to read. I look forward to reading more of Arunava Singa's and Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay's works.
Thank you for this awesome gift you blessed me with, @post_santa .
BOOK 1: PANTY BY SANGEETA BANDYOPADHYAY
Translated by: Arunava Sinha
📍 India
Published by @tiltedaxisbooks @tiltedaxispress
August 3, 2017
A woman steps into an apartment in Kolkata. It’s nighttime, and none of the light switches work. She finds a mirror, but when she touches her hair her reflection does not replicate the gesture. She showers, and as she’s showering she can hear a phone ringing. The next morning, she finds a stained, abandoned pair of women’s leopard-print underwear at the bottom of a wardrobe. And later that day, a menstrual emergency forces her to replace her own underwear with the leopard-print pair. But as she slips it on, she also steps into the previous owner’s life and mind. The rest of the novella switches between the two women, mixing dreams and childhood memories, strange adventures and sexual encounters, thoughts and body parts.
Panty is the sort of book that presents readers with one mystery after the next, inviting us to read it over and over again in order to “solve” it. Why are the chapter numbers not in the correct order, and why are some numbers missing? When are we reading about the underwear’s previous owner, and when are we reading about its current wearer? What does it mean that religion is “a memory of the dream of past lives”? Why did the translator leave a brief note at the beginning calling attention to the South Asian concept of mon, which includes both “heart” and “mind”? What is the relationship, if any, between Panty and the short story included at the end of the book, Sahana, or Samim, about a woman’s complex relationship with a husband who is both a devout Muslim and violently repulsed by the eating of fish?
Read the rest of my review over at my blog, Strange Bookfellows: https://strangebookfellowsblog.wordpr...
Panty is the sort of book that presents readers with one mystery after the next, inviting us to read it over and over again in order to “solve” it. Why are the chapter numbers not in the correct order, and why are some numbers missing? When are we reading about the underwear’s previous owner, and when are we reading about its current wearer? What does it mean that religion is “a memory of the dream of past lives”? Why did the translator leave a brief note at the beginning calling attention to the South Asian concept of mon, which includes both “heart” and “mind”? What is the relationship, if any, between Panty and the short story included at the end of the book, Sahana, or Samim, about a woman’s complex relationship with a husband who is both a devout Muslim and violently repulsed by the eating of fish?
Read the rest of my review over at my blog, Strange Bookfellows: https://strangebookfellowsblog.wordpr...
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