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The Boyfriend
One Sunday morning in late 1992, Yudi, a forty something gay journalist, picks up a 19-year-old Dalit boy in the Churchgate loo. After hurried sex, he gets rid of the boy, afraid that he may be a hustler. There is nothing to set this brief enounter apart from numerous others, and Yudi returns to his bachelor's flat and sex with strangers. Months pass. But when riots break out in Mumbai, Yudi finds himself worrying about the boy from Churchgate station. He is in love. Full of irreverent, dry humour and devoid of sentimentality, this novel brings us a tragi-comic love story from the jumbled up heart of Mumbai. In the process, it also examines with unsparing irony the realities of caste, class, religion, masculinity and the gay subculture in India.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
14 people are currently reading
311 people want to read
About the author
R. Raj Rao
21 books32 followersR. Raj Rao (born 1955) is a writer and teacher of literature and one of India’s leading gay-rights activists. His 2003 novel The Boyfriend is one of the first gay novels to come from India.
He received his PhD in English iterature from the University of Bombay, and did post-doctoral studies from the University of Warwick. He is the author of Slide Show (poems), One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul City (short stories) and Nissim Ezekiel: The Authorized Biography. Poems from his ‘BomGay’ collection also served as the basis for Riyad Wadia's 1996 film Bomgay, said to be India's first gay film.
Rao is a professor in the department of English, University of Pune, founder of Queer Studies Circle, a gay-lesbian student group, and in his own words, a radical utopian.
He received his PhD in English iterature from the University of Bombay, and did post-doctoral studies from the University of Warwick. He is the author of Slide Show (poems), One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul City (short stories) and Nissim Ezekiel: The Authorized Biography. Poems from his ‘BomGay’ collection also served as the basis for Riyad Wadia's 1996 film Bomgay, said to be India's first gay film.
Rao is a professor in the department of English, University of Pune, founder of Queer Studies Circle, a gay-lesbian student group, and in his own words, a radical utopian.
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September 14, 2018
What am I, a white, English, heterosexual, country-living, happily married woman doing reading about the life and love of a sexually voracious homosexual who lives, works in Mumbai and cruises the parks and train station toilets of the city in search of cheap sexual thrills? What am I doing? I'm throwing myself neck-deep into an alien pool marked `not my comfort zone' and all in the pursuit of my need to know more about the country that fascinates me beyond all others.
When you consider that India is a country of over a billion people, it's pretty obvious that there will be plenty of homosexuals especially when female infanticide means there are a lot more men than women and dating is almost non-existent. When you look at Indian literature or watch Indian films, you could be forgiven for thinking that nobody in India does `that sort of thing', just as you can be forgiven for thinking there's no sex outside marriage.It's like a national conspiracy to look the other way. Occasionally a brave author will introduce a gay or lesbian character into an Indian novel, but generally the rules are that such characters must have a miserable, loveless and tragic life. The Boyfriend by R. Raj Rao breaks all the rules.
The Boyfriend is set 20 years ago in Mumbai and is the story of Yudi, a gay journalist in his 40s who lives in a flat in an unfashionably end-of-the-line suburb of the city. Most days he gets up, drifts into the city to do a bit of writing, see newspaper and magazine editors, have lunch with friends or colleagues and then pop into the toilets at Churchgate Station in search of no-strings-attached sexual gratification with like-minded strangers. He loves the thrill of picking up men at Churchgate. On one visit to the toilets he picks up a young man called Milind who is less than half his age. After a bit of hanky panky in the lavs, Yudi takes him back to his mother's apartment for the night. Don't worry, his mum's away - there are some depravities that even the worst Indian son won't stoop to in his mother's home.
Next morning the two part, but Yudi can't forget his young lover and when fate brings the two together again he realises he's in love. Then Milind disappears again and Yudi needs to find him again.If you lose someone in a city the size of Mumbai, they usually stay lost.
The Boyfriend is a real eye-opener and an exceedingly thought-provoking book. It's not just about the challenges of being a sexually active gay man in 1990s Mumbai - it's full of other deep topics such as mother-son love and responsibility, cross-caste relationships, shades of `outsidership', friendship, lust, love, deception and extortion, exploitation of all types and issues of survivorship in a city where money counts for a lot. Milind is a Dalit - what used to be called an `untouchable' and he can't understand why a high caste man like Yudi would defile himself with a Dalit but Yudi tells him all gays are outcasts to society and so equals, even if the ones with the money get to call the shots.
There are prejudices in the book - lots of them and not always the ones you expect. Milind is able to consider himself somehow less `gay' and therefore better than Yudi because he's the `active' partner. When he works as a call-boy he's offended by being treated in a `female' role because it demeans his manliness. When he marries, he loathes and abuses his wife, treating her as a servant, beneath contempt, returning eventually to Yudi to get money to support his family. There's little to like about this unpleasant little man but he makes Yudi happy and despite the exploitation, and financial nature of their contact, Yudi gains a contentment that eludes his lover.
It's not all heavy and serious stuff though. There's are some very funny passages as well. You will also learn a lot - probably more than you'd ever want to know - about how gay men cruise Mumbai for action - from the park, to the public toilets to the `gay carriage' on the train. At times it reads more like San Francisco in the 1970s than Mumbai in the 1990s.
I can't really say I `enjoyed' this book but I certainly found it very interesting and I will put R. Raj Rao's other book onto my wishlist. It filled in some questions in my mind about the practicalities of how gay relationships work in a big Indian city, about the challenges of different lifestyles in a society with more than the usual number of reasons for people to think they're better than other people. And most surprisingly, the ending is in its own way almost quite a happy one.
I read anything and everything set in India but The Boyfriend is one of the most unusual novels I've ever found. For an Indian book to be as explicit as this, to be as open about what's still very much a taboo lifestyle, is extraordinary and R. Raj Rao is to be commended for writing what others only hint at. I can only imagine that it has been a help to many Indian gay men who otherwise have little access to literature of this kind.
When you consider that India is a country of over a billion people, it's pretty obvious that there will be plenty of homosexuals especially when female infanticide means there are a lot more men than women and dating is almost non-existent. When you look at Indian literature or watch Indian films, you could be forgiven for thinking that nobody in India does `that sort of thing', just as you can be forgiven for thinking there's no sex outside marriage.It's like a national conspiracy to look the other way. Occasionally a brave author will introduce a gay or lesbian character into an Indian novel, but generally the rules are that such characters must have a miserable, loveless and tragic life. The Boyfriend by R. Raj Rao breaks all the rules.
The Boyfriend is set 20 years ago in Mumbai and is the story of Yudi, a gay journalist in his 40s who lives in a flat in an unfashionably end-of-the-line suburb of the city. Most days he gets up, drifts into the city to do a bit of writing, see newspaper and magazine editors, have lunch with friends or colleagues and then pop into the toilets at Churchgate Station in search of no-strings-attached sexual gratification with like-minded strangers. He loves the thrill of picking up men at Churchgate. On one visit to the toilets he picks up a young man called Milind who is less than half his age. After a bit of hanky panky in the lavs, Yudi takes him back to his mother's apartment for the night. Don't worry, his mum's away - there are some depravities that even the worst Indian son won't stoop to in his mother's home.
Next morning the two part, but Yudi can't forget his young lover and when fate brings the two together again he realises he's in love. Then Milind disappears again and Yudi needs to find him again.If you lose someone in a city the size of Mumbai, they usually stay lost.
The Boyfriend is a real eye-opener and an exceedingly thought-provoking book. It's not just about the challenges of being a sexually active gay man in 1990s Mumbai - it's full of other deep topics such as mother-son love and responsibility, cross-caste relationships, shades of `outsidership', friendship, lust, love, deception and extortion, exploitation of all types and issues of survivorship in a city where money counts for a lot. Milind is a Dalit - what used to be called an `untouchable' and he can't understand why a high caste man like Yudi would defile himself with a Dalit but Yudi tells him all gays are outcasts to society and so equals, even if the ones with the money get to call the shots.
There are prejudices in the book - lots of them and not always the ones you expect. Milind is able to consider himself somehow less `gay' and therefore better than Yudi because he's the `active' partner. When he works as a call-boy he's offended by being treated in a `female' role because it demeans his manliness. When he marries, he loathes and abuses his wife, treating her as a servant, beneath contempt, returning eventually to Yudi to get money to support his family. There's little to like about this unpleasant little man but he makes Yudi happy and despite the exploitation, and financial nature of their contact, Yudi gains a contentment that eludes his lover.
It's not all heavy and serious stuff though. There's are some very funny passages as well. You will also learn a lot - probably more than you'd ever want to know - about how gay men cruise Mumbai for action - from the park, to the public toilets to the `gay carriage' on the train. At times it reads more like San Francisco in the 1970s than Mumbai in the 1990s.
I can't really say I `enjoyed' this book but I certainly found it very interesting and I will put R. Raj Rao's other book onto my wishlist. It filled in some questions in my mind about the practicalities of how gay relationships work in a big Indian city, about the challenges of different lifestyles in a society with more than the usual number of reasons for people to think they're better than other people. And most surprisingly, the ending is in its own way almost quite a happy one.
I read anything and everything set in India but The Boyfriend is one of the most unusual novels I've ever found. For an Indian book to be as explicit as this, to be as open about what's still very much a taboo lifestyle, is extraordinary and R. Raj Rao is to be commended for writing what others only hint at. I can only imagine that it has been a help to many Indian gay men who otherwise have little access to literature of this kind.
July 13, 2023
NOT A REVIEW
The Boyfriend by R. Raj Rao, published in 2003, was one of the first queer novels in Indian English fiction. As such, it will remain remarkable for that reason alone, regardless of the actual quality of the work.
The story concerns a 40-something gay freelance journalist, Yudi, who spends most of his spare time cruising and hooking up. He meets a 19-year old boy, Milind, during one of his ventures and realizes he's fallen in love with him. The boy turns out to be a working class Dalit; the rest of the book takes us through the usual vicissitudes of a romance.
So, what makes this book so dreadful that despite being one of the first and one of the few gay novels to come out of India, I am compelled to overlook its social value, and give it a one-star rating?
I mean, keeping the aesthetic issues aside (it's poorly paced; the characters are two-dimensional and often inconsistent; the narrative is a mess, etc.), I think the biggest problem with this book is that...it's kinda misanthropic. Lathering everything with a thick layer of irony, often coupled with poor double-entendres, the outlook of this book is a relentlessly pessimistic one. While not a crime in itself, when it is so ineffectively done as is the case here, it makes the reading experience ten times worse.
Our main character, Yudi, has little going for himself apart from being gay and a journalist. Well, of course, he's horny all the time, like all gay men are, to the extent that his libido overtakes all other desires or mental faculties. He wants a room in house exclusively for hook-ups (and keep in mind, we're talking Mumbai here):
And also:
Beyond being a horny homosexual, there are some glimpses of interesting character development in the first few chapters. He has this peculiar habit of categorizing his hookups into "boxes" and playing different genres of music according to it. He also has an idiosyncratic taste in men that ranges from mildly fetish-y to...deeply disturbing:
But either way. It's a promising start. The first few interactions of Milind and Yudi, I will admit, I enjoyed quite a bit. Despite the chasms between them - of age, class, caste, education, etc. - it was interesting to see how their chemistry developed.
Yudi, while in a relationship with a working-class Dalit, is a deeply casteist and classist man. He thinks his homosexuality gives him an insight into these other kinds of oppression ("Gay by caste, gay by religion," he says at one point), but doesn't realize how complicit and privileged he is.
Milind, on the other hand, has issues with masculinity. He believes that somehow being the "active" one in the relationship makes him the "man", makes him superior. Now all in all, these are interesting dynamics. Of course, conflicts also arise out of them. So...does the author use these conflicts to effect some kind of character development, make them reflect on their positions and beliefs?
No.
This is how he resolves conflicts:
So, changes in surroundings, weather...or a cliché. The reader has the right to feel cheated. So much wasted potential.
Intertwined with this plot is the story of Gauri, a painter, a rich kid, a divorcee. She's fatally obsessed with Yudi, despite knowing that he's gay. As a character, she's ridiculous - it's difficult to discern her interiority - and is responsible for some of the most risible scenes in the book.
The plot is thrown off the loop in the last couple chapters, enough to make the reader want to throw the book across the room. But after suffering through all this, what do we get? Is there any semblance of change in our characters, do we see any kind of development?
Here's Yudi nearing the end:
And here's Milind:
The reader also has the right to be infuriated.
The Boyfriend by R. Raj Rao, published in 2003, was one of the first queer novels in Indian English fiction. As such, it will remain remarkable for that reason alone, regardless of the actual quality of the work.
The story concerns a 40-something gay freelance journalist, Yudi, who spends most of his spare time cruising and hooking up. He meets a 19-year old boy, Milind, during one of his ventures and realizes he's fallen in love with him. The boy turns out to be a working class Dalit; the rest of the book takes us through the usual vicissitudes of a romance.
So, what makes this book so dreadful that despite being one of the first and one of the few gay novels to come out of India, I am compelled to overlook its social value, and give it a one-star rating?
I mean, keeping the aesthetic issues aside (it's poorly paced; the characters are two-dimensional and often inconsistent; the narrative is a mess, etc.), I think the biggest problem with this book is that...it's kinda misanthropic. Lathering everything with a thick layer of irony, often coupled with poor double-entendres, the outlook of this book is a relentlessly pessimistic one. While not a crime in itself, when it is so ineffectively done as is the case here, it makes the reading experience ten times worse.
Our main character, Yudi, has little going for himself apart from being gay and a journalist. Well, of course, he's horny all the time, like all gay men are, to the extent that his libido overtakes all other desires or mental faculties. He wants a room in house exclusively for hook-ups (and keep in mind, we're talking Mumbai here):
If the kitchen and the bogs were reduced in size, they might even be able to carve out an extra room for him, though the total area of the flat was less than 500 square feet. He could use this room to fuck
And also:
Come evening, and he would rush off to the maidan as if he were going to answer nature’s urgent call...Whenever he went to the Press Club, the restlessness showed. He couldn’t resist the temptation to slip out through the backdoor and enter the maidan.
Beyond being a horny homosexual, there are some glimpses of interesting character development in the first few chapters. He has this peculiar habit of categorizing his hookups into "boxes" and playing different genres of music according to it. He also has an idiosyncratic taste in men that ranges from mildly fetish-y to...deeply disturbing:
Men who were physically disabled, for instance, turned him on. It could be any handicap: blindness, lameness, a hunched back; he was ready to give anything to sleep with them. Whenever Yudi spotted a blind man on the street, he ran up to him to ask if he needed help, say, to cross the road. The man was usually overwhelmed by the Good Samaritan’s kindness. He put away his white cane and gave his hand to Yudi. Yudi clasped the hand firmly. Even if he didn’t succeed in getting the poor soul into bed, he at least had a highly charged walk with him, as their hands had intercourse out there in the open.
But either way. It's a promising start. The first few interactions of Milind and Yudi, I will admit, I enjoyed quite a bit. Despite the chasms between them - of age, class, caste, education, etc. - it was interesting to see how their chemistry developed.
Yudi, while in a relationship with a working-class Dalit, is a deeply casteist and classist man. He thinks his homosexuality gives him an insight into these other kinds of oppression ("Gay by caste, gay by religion," he says at one point), but doesn't realize how complicit and privileged he is.
Milind, on the other hand, has issues with masculinity. He believes that somehow being the "active" one in the relationship makes him the "man", makes him superior. Now all in all, these are interesting dynamics. Of course, conflicts also arise out of them. So...does the author use these conflicts to effect some kind of character development, make them reflect on their positions and beliefs?
No.
This is how he resolves conflicts:
Sights, sounds and smells have so much to do with mood. As the train went past the saltpans and trundled along the Vasai Bridge, Yudi and Milind managed to put the offensive thing behind them. They regained their lost spirits.
They walked quietly, lost, neither certain where their hotel was. Then came the calm that follows the storm.
Both Yudi and Milind felt rejuvenated by the raindrops that lashed against their skin.
Their anger melted away, and they hugged each other as if they were in Yudi’s bathroom, showering together.
So, changes in surroundings, weather...or a cliché. The reader has the right to feel cheated. So much wasted potential.
Intertwined with this plot is the story of Gauri, a painter, a rich kid, a divorcee. She's fatally obsessed with Yudi, despite knowing that he's gay. As a character, she's ridiculous - it's difficult to discern her interiority - and is responsible for some of the most risible scenes in the book.
The plot is thrown off the loop in the last couple chapters, enough to make the reader want to throw the book across the room. But after suffering through all this, what do we get? Is there any semblance of change in our characters, do we see any kind of development?
Here's Yudi nearing the end:
However, when it came to perfumes, the fakers had no idea what to apply on their rancid bodies. They chose cheap Musafirkhana scents in fancy bottles, giving Yudi the feeling that the smell of their collective sweat would have been less revolting.
And here's Milind:
But Milind was imperturbable. What did the bitch know anyway? Why couldn’t she wash dishes in someone’s house and allow the master of the house to fuck her, if she was that desperate for pocket money? ‘Must flog her with my belt again,’ he told himself.
The reader also has the right to be infuriated.
January 14, 2018
It's funny how some books stick with you in interesting ways. I don't remember much about this book, but I have to think about it every time I clip my toenails. Every time I think: I'm clipping them over something to collect the clippings to throw away, but I want to rebel and not do that because of how the two main characters interact about nail clippings in this book. And it makes me glad no one tells me how to clip my toenails!
January 4, 2022
What a supreme waste of my time. Cleaning my cat's stinky litter box is more fun than whatever this was. Zero stars.
January 4, 2022
Okay so initially I had decided to give it two stars but the ending was so egregious that i was forced to give it one star. I can’t even decide what i hated more about the book. The protagonist who didn’t give a single fuck about his single mother, the guy who was so selfish that he destroyed 2 more lives along with his, the girl whose desperation was coming out of the book or the author who sounded extremely transphobic at some points.
March 13, 2025
This is a very interesting book. One that I should have hated (and let me remind you, recently I have been hating or at least disliking a lot of books), but for weird reasons, I did not. The problems/faults of the book (and there are many) became the things I liked the most.
To begin with, all the characters are nasty, especially the narrator Yudi. He is a man through and through. Horny and lusting after every man he lays his eyes on. On the outside, he is somewhat decent, but since he is the one narrating the story, we get to hear his thoughts as well. And let me just say, they were not always politically correct. And I appreciated this. Don’t we all think bad things in our heads knowing we are thinking bad things?
Secondly, the structure and the pacing of this novel are a mess. A mess. Some parts move slowly, almost at a very leisurely pace, but then there are parts that move at the speed of a fired bullet. Again, this did not bother me because of the third reason.
Thirdly, the language. The language in this book is what redeems it. It is very “Indian,” very colloquial, very humorous, and not of the cheap kind. The humor is extremely intelligent, one that you need to have a certain degree of understanding of gay culture to get.
This book is also very observant of things around it. It critiques the world perfectly and correctly. One thing I would say, though, is the narration as well as the story; it’s very dry. It is not an emotional book. You do not feel attached to the characters; you do not even feel a thing for them. Do not go into this book thinking it will be an emotional gay love story. There isn’t one. It lacks sensitivity towards its own characters.
But still, it’s a great book. A book that captures the world of the 90s perfectly, and while reading it, we are made to realize that the world hasn’t changed much, or at least India hasn’t.
To begin with, all the characters are nasty, especially the narrator Yudi. He is a man through and through. Horny and lusting after every man he lays his eyes on. On the outside, he is somewhat decent, but since he is the one narrating the story, we get to hear his thoughts as well. And let me just say, they were not always politically correct. And I appreciated this. Don’t we all think bad things in our heads knowing we are thinking bad things?
Secondly, the structure and the pacing of this novel are a mess. A mess. Some parts move slowly, almost at a very leisurely pace, but then there are parts that move at the speed of a fired bullet. Again, this did not bother me because of the third reason.
Thirdly, the language. The language in this book is what redeems it. It is very “Indian,” very colloquial, very humorous, and not of the cheap kind. The humor is extremely intelligent, one that you need to have a certain degree of understanding of gay culture to get.
This book is also very observant of things around it. It critiques the world perfectly and correctly. One thing I would say, though, is the narration as well as the story; it’s very dry. It is not an emotional book. You do not feel attached to the characters; you do not even feel a thing for them. Do not go into this book thinking it will be an emotional gay love story. There isn’t one. It lacks sensitivity towards its own characters.
But still, it’s a great book. A book that captures the world of the 90s perfectly, and while reading it, we are made to realize that the world hasn’t changed much, or at least India hasn’t.
August 3, 2015
da www.sognipensieriparole.com
Ecco qua, credo di aver finalmente chiara la differenza tra i cosiddetti m/m e i gay novel.
In “Boyfriend” non troverete una storia d’amore tra maschi con (auspicabile) lieto fine. Questo è prima di tutto un romanzo di odori, suoni, luoghi, incontri, il più delle volte sgradevoli e irritanti. Su tutto domina una Bombay di sporcizia, calura, promiscuità, ignoranza, dove anche se vai al cinema con i biglietti di prima classe ti ritrovi i topi che ti rosicchiano i piedi (senza che nessuno, peraltro, si scomponga), e anche se abiti nei quartieri bene gli scarafaggi ti fanno compagnia durante il pranzo.
C’è una condizione di omosessualità sempre in bilico tra lo squallore (dei luoghi) e la desolazione (delle persone), dove si cerca sesso mordi e fuggi nei bagni pubblici, e mentre ti destreggi con i routinari bisogni del corpo hai un pubblico di voyeur che ti esamina, valuta, desidera. Pronto a contrattare.
Credo che sia questa la principale chiave di lettura: una megalopoli sordida ma viva, violenta eppure vera, che Raj Rao racconta con ironia e passione, senza nascondersi e nasconderci nulla. Al di là di questo, la storia tra il quarantenne single colto e passivo (disgraziatamente effemminato e innamorato cotto) e lo spregiudicato ragazzetto, intoccabile ma aduso alla furbizia e all’arte di arrangiarsi, potrebbe collocarsi ovunque.
Una storia a tratti divertente ma anche amarissima, dove non è più chiaro chi sfrutta chi. Ciascuno rimane SOLO (Yudi, Milya, Gauri la donna terzo incomodo e la moglie ufficiale di Milya, che rimane sempre nell’ombra), gabbato o usato, a seconda del punto di vista, con una disperata voglia (inconfessata, perché non sarebbe abbastanza virile, e mai soddisfatta) di abbracci e di amore.
Ecco qua, credo di aver finalmente chiara la differenza tra i cosiddetti m/m e i gay novel.
In “Boyfriend” non troverete una storia d’amore tra maschi con (auspicabile) lieto fine. Questo è prima di tutto un romanzo di odori, suoni, luoghi, incontri, il più delle volte sgradevoli e irritanti. Su tutto domina una Bombay di sporcizia, calura, promiscuità, ignoranza, dove anche se vai al cinema con i biglietti di prima classe ti ritrovi i topi che ti rosicchiano i piedi (senza che nessuno, peraltro, si scomponga), e anche se abiti nei quartieri bene gli scarafaggi ti fanno compagnia durante il pranzo.
C’è una condizione di omosessualità sempre in bilico tra lo squallore (dei luoghi) e la desolazione (delle persone), dove si cerca sesso mordi e fuggi nei bagni pubblici, e mentre ti destreggi con i routinari bisogni del corpo hai un pubblico di voyeur che ti esamina, valuta, desidera. Pronto a contrattare.
Credo che sia questa la principale chiave di lettura: una megalopoli sordida ma viva, violenta eppure vera, che Raj Rao racconta con ironia e passione, senza nascondersi e nasconderci nulla. Al di là di questo, la storia tra il quarantenne single colto e passivo (disgraziatamente effemminato e innamorato cotto) e lo spregiudicato ragazzetto, intoccabile ma aduso alla furbizia e all’arte di arrangiarsi, potrebbe collocarsi ovunque.
Una storia a tratti divertente ma anche amarissima, dove non è più chiaro chi sfrutta chi. Ciascuno rimane SOLO (Yudi, Milya, Gauri la donna terzo incomodo e la moglie ufficiale di Milya, che rimane sempre nell’ombra), gabbato o usato, a seconda del punto di vista, con una disperata voglia (inconfessata, perché non sarebbe abbastanza virile, e mai soddisfatta) di abbracci e di amore.
June 5, 2011
Queer as Folk in salsa Bollywood...
Permettetemi il paragone, anche se forse un po' inappropriato. QaF è ovviamente incomparabile, e questo romanzo non gli si avvicina nemmeno un po'. Ma può aiutare a rendere meglio l'idea, ovvero l'emodramma di una coppia strampalata (uno quarantenne di successo, scapolo, che se ne fa uno diverso ogni sera; l'altro diciannovenne, povero e confuso), stilizzata in canoni tipicamente occidentali, impiantato su uno sfondo folkloristicamente indiano.
Sarà che a leggere romanzi di questo genere ben presto tutti i libri cominciano a sembrarti uguali, ma davvero questo romanzo non riesce a distinguersi dalla masssa. I personaggi son caratterizzati quanto richiesto dal canone, con tutte le loro contraddizioni, lo sfondo sociale e culturale indiano (a partire dalla condizione dei dalit, i fuori casta) è certamente curato, ma ostentato come in una cartolina, destinata ad un pubblico occidentale. Nulla a che vedere con Salma Rushdie, per dire, che pure viene citato più volte.
Insomma, apprezziamo lo sforzo, ma niente di più.
Permettetemi il paragone, anche se forse un po' inappropriato. QaF è ovviamente incomparabile, e questo romanzo non gli si avvicina nemmeno un po'. Ma può aiutare a rendere meglio l'idea, ovvero l'emodramma di una coppia strampalata (uno quarantenne di successo, scapolo, che se ne fa uno diverso ogni sera; l'altro diciannovenne, povero e confuso), stilizzata in canoni tipicamente occidentali, impiantato su uno sfondo folkloristicamente indiano.
Sarà che a leggere romanzi di questo genere ben presto tutti i libri cominciano a sembrarti uguali, ma davvero questo romanzo non riesce a distinguersi dalla masssa. I personaggi son caratterizzati quanto richiesto dal canone, con tutte le loro contraddizioni, lo sfondo sociale e culturale indiano (a partire dalla condizione dei dalit, i fuori casta) è certamente curato, ma ostentato come in una cartolina, destinata ad un pubblico occidentale. Nulla a che vedere con Salma Rushdie, per dire, che pure viene citato più volte.
Insomma, apprezziamo lo sforzo, ma niente di più.
August 23, 2020
My first ever queer novel. It's cool. The best aspect of the book was that it did not romanticize queer hardships in the closeted life, but tried keeping it real and believable!
September 20, 2023
•Kind of a nice book, giving a thorough peek into the lives of queers living in Mumbai of 80’s and 90’s. It was intriguing at many parts, and it lost my interest at some.
•The commencement is something we Indians describe as "fully massaledar (Spicy)"!
• It shows very clearly that this novel is the first ever book written by the author. The sentences, endings of paragraphs, heavy words thrown randomly anywhere and everywhere, etc., stuff shows the amateurism. The writing style reminds me of . mine, circa 2017/18.
• Real and Good content, but again, Amateur writing.
•What this book succeeds to do is catch and display the intricate layers of religion, cast, color, race in Mumbai of 90's, all the while tackling LGBTQ+.
•Love how the author "plays" with Indian cultural references.
•The denouement seemed rushed...it felt like it was written "just for the sake of it"
• Overall, it was an "okay" read.
•The commencement is something we Indians describe as "fully massaledar (Spicy)"!
• It shows very clearly that this novel is the first ever book written by the author. The sentences, endings of paragraphs, heavy words thrown randomly anywhere and everywhere, etc., stuff shows the amateurism. The writing style reminds me of . mine, circa 2017/18.
• Real and Good content, but again, Amateur writing.
•What this book succeeds to do is catch and display the intricate layers of religion, cast, color, race in Mumbai of 90's, all the while tackling LGBTQ+.
•Love how the author "plays" with Indian cultural references.
•The denouement seemed rushed...it felt like it was written "just for the sake of it"
• Overall, it was an "okay" read.
December 15, 2023
3.5 for me.
I respect its place in India's queer literary history, and I enjoyed the read. I felt that some of his writing style was somewhat tedious, however I look forward to reading further books from this author, to see if he refined his technique.
An authentic and honest glimpse into the lives of queer communities in Mumbai during the 80s/90s.
I respect its place in India's queer literary history, and I enjoyed the read. I felt that some of his writing style was somewhat tedious, however I look forward to reading further books from this author, to see if he refined his technique.
An authentic and honest glimpse into the lives of queer communities in Mumbai during the 80s/90s.
November 24, 2024
3.5
‘What did I just read?’ was the thought at which I ended this book. If I had read it about two decades ago when it came out, it would have had a huge impact on me. However, even now, reading this book I did learn about some interesting and scandalising things about the Mumbai queer scene so that was something, I suppose.
‘What did I just read?’ was the thought at which I ended this book. If I had read it about two decades ago when it came out, it would have had a huge impact on me. However, even now, reading this book I did learn about some interesting and scandalising things about the Mumbai queer scene so that was something, I suppose.
July 14, 2020
Well, it kept me hooked till end. But it wasn't edited properly. And I am tired of reading novels with gay characters who are always promiscuous.
January 10, 2021
Few pages into the book and there was a scene of normalized sexual assault. DNFed it right away. No thanks, next.
June 22, 2021
I do not know if it was a defect in my copy, but the synopsis basically bared the entire story. Regardless, I really enjoyed this book, with its clever writing and honesty.
July 30, 2022
I have always imagined how would have gay people loved during the 80's and this book cleared it all.
April 27, 2025
3.5⭐️
Lots of Bombay references and queer stuff. Very unsentimental novel, overall. It was quite chill!
Lots of Bombay references and queer stuff. Very unsentimental novel, overall. It was quite chill!
October 22, 2019
India's first gay novel does not live up to its hype -- its historical significance notwithstanding, the writing is too plain to pass muster as a final draft of a novel. The characters are clumsily drawn, with little or no imagination, plot points are unconvincingly, conveniently injected right before they need to be invoked and the dialogues are insipid at best. The story is full of dick-jokes that do not make you laugh, of cliches that fall flat and a style that is immature at first, but gradually becomes more and more intolerable.
I'd pass this for India's second gay novel, or its first evidence of non-gay queer literature.
I'd pass this for India's second gay novel, or its first evidence of non-gay queer literature.
November 20, 2019
The Boyfriend is a novel about gay relationships in India, a country which is filled to the brim with homophobes. The novel had so much potential. It could've been something but in the end, it was just another mediocre novel.
The writing is okayish and the characterisation is not upto the mark. The novel is full of unnecessary dick jokes which didn't help the plot at all. There was a lot of missed potential while fleshing out the characters. The story is just another cheesy love story but with gay characters.
I would pass up this author's other books if they are anything similar to this
The writing is okayish and the characterisation is not upto the mark. The novel is full of unnecessary dick jokes which didn't help the plot at all. There was a lot of missed potential while fleshing out the characters. The story is just another cheesy love story but with gay characters.
I would pass up this author's other books if they are anything similar to this
July 8, 2014
This book followed an amusing narrative, lending to more laughs than were expected when glancing at the cover. There exists a nuanced way in which the author presents carefully-interwoven symbolism while touching upon issues of concern in the early 1990s from a twenty-first century perspective. The relationship was extremely plausible and heart-warming, to the extent that we felt for the characters as they waxed and waned in their desire, lust and attachment. I was impressed by so much of this book, and it left me wanting more of the author - a high commendation on literature that amuses while furnishing the reader with a multi-layered series of characters that surprise in a down-to-earth fashion.
April 1, 2013
Mah, il titolo mi ha solleticato, l'argomento anche, pensando che l'omosessualità non è più reato in India da un paio d'anni.. Cominciamo dai pregi che facciamo prima...Mumble mumble... I difetti: innanzi tutto la traduzione. Io ODIO ODIO ODIO quando modi di dire o slang vengono tradotti in italiano con equivalenti di casa nostra, tipo "costa un botto", o "il pischello": e che, sto leggendo Moccia? Quindi traduttore: 100 frustate sulla schiena! Due è proprio scritto male.. I personaggi mal caratterizzati, i dialoghi da brivido, i capitoli appiccicati tanto per dare corpo alla storia.. 14.50euro nel cesso, yuppie...
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May 28, 2013This fiction of R Raj Rao is very provoking. I appreciate the depiction of gay life in realistic manner. the hidden way of life is expressed in fearless manner. I have many doubts Firstly, Does Yudi love that boy or else is it Just emotional involvement, since initially he was available whenever he needed him for sex? even if it is love, what sought of love it is? Gauri falls in love with him knowing that, she can not expect anything from him what a life partner expects usually from husband, but she enjoys his company! In my Opinion Gauri's love towards Yudi is greater than Yudi's love towards Milind Mahadik.
February 14, 2022
Honestly one of the WORST books I’ve ever read. The characters are wholly unlikeable, the plot is a poor soap opera - it felt like a waste of time. I didn’t like the writing style either. Lots of problematic content and a disgusting depiction of LGBTQIA+ Indian life. Maybe it’s a real story that happens a lot, but it’s not one I’d like to read again. The women in the book are treated poorly, the sex is described as “homosex” and features no joy. It’s desperate, unromantic, casteist, makes fun of penis size… it made me physically mad.
September 17, 2016
Cashing in on "Gayism" the writer jumps on the bandwagon of wannabe gay fiction writer. The plot is paper thin, language is below average and the storytelling skills leave a lot to be desired. The only sensation he creates in the book is bringing in a renamed aging Bollywood Hero - allegedly a closeted gay. Nothing redeems the book though.
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