‘Hidden Treasure’: A novel that leaves the reader famished by what it reveals and for what it hides

Should circumstantial constraints be given consideration in judgements of ethics and politics, especially when religion and patriarchy collude in making women the brunt of their systemic quandaries? Is conventionally forbidden desire an instrument of defiance when exercised by the marginalised and oppressed? How are we to determine what is “right” and “wrong” when fiction necessarily defies these neat categorisations?

Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay’s novella, Hidden Treasure – translated from the Bengali by Ipsa S – resists straightforward answers to these complex questions. The “hidden treasure” of the title, the guptodhon, is jewellery worth no mean sum, obtained by the protagonist Chintamoni during her liaison with the palm-reader Kalishankar, who himself has stolen it under the pretext of worship from the Kali Temple in Kolkata. The tragic paradox of the story from which is derived its emotional appeal is that this treasure, furtively acquired and carefully shielded from prying eyes, is neither used to generative ends nor forgotten, such that Chintamoni’s life and world come to revolve around it even as she never sells it or benefits from it.

Trapped and troubled

Our introduction to Chintamoni on the very first page of the novel is through the space she inhabits – cramped rooms, rat-infested kitchens, a mess of old junk strewn about –...

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