Sunday, June 15, 2003		Books

Portraying Mumbai’s gay underbelly
Aradhika Sekhon

The Boyfriend
by R. Raja Rao, Penguin Books, New Delhi. Pages 232, Rs 250.

PROBABLY novels have been written about the 'gay underbelly' of Mumbai and certainly many magazines are devoting reams to the "gay issue". However, seldom has one come across an author who deals with these concerns with such "gay abandon", air of casualness, dry humour and such ironical irreverence. For R. Raja Rao, it appears, homosexuality is not an "issue" or a "concern" but merely a fact of life that he is living through. Thus, it has to be dealt with as any truth of life must be handled—simply by experiencing it—in this case through his protagonists. That he is one of India's leading gay right activists is evident by the comfort levels he has with the subject but unlike the usual activist, there is no stridency, ever.

The novel is an eye-opener insofar as the extent of the homosexuality prevalent in Mumbai goes. Maybe this is true of other cities too but within this context, Mumbai comes into the limelight. Gay hang-outs, gay bars, gay pick-up joints and very, very casual sex with just about anyone 'amenable'-whether it's a courier boy who comes to deliver a letter, or a policeman or a bhangi. The other favorite pick-up areas seem to be some earmarked compartments in the local trains, in the Churchgate station loo or in public parks like the Azad Maidan and some city streets. Rao mentions these spots in some detail.

"Sunday mornings, unlike peak working hours brought the most unappetizing males to Churchgate`85. The Churchgate loo has two sections. By convention one of them is the gay wing, the other is straight. The hetro wing of course has a better supply of mainstream men, but one dare not cruise in that area for fear of being bashed up"

The chief protagonist of the book is Yudi, ' a forty-something gay journalist'. Yudi is completely and honestly gay`85his friends know it, the women attracted to him know it and even his mother knows it although she won't enunciate it. This is the reason that his ex-lovers can't blackmail Yudi who would rather opt to stay at the God-forsaken locality of Nalla Sopara so that he can make a happy hunting ground of the Churchgate station and the train compartment than in a more accessible area. He is totally honest and comfortable with his sexuality and very categorical about his sexual preferences and inclinations. Nor is he really interested in any long-term relationship`85straight and simple sex with a willing male partner will do for him. His take on homosexual relationships was: " There were no young men who genuinely desired relationships with other men. They were content with a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence so that they could have the best of both worlds. To all intents and purposes, they were manly men who married women and sired children. Who on earth would know that they also screwed people of their own gender on the sly?`85He (Yudi) had plenty of sex, yes, but couldn't bring himself to love any of the men he went to bed with, although he carried this great reservoir of love around his heart"

The story gets moving with Yudi's encounter with a 19-year-old Dalit boy, Milind Mahadik, whom he picks up in the Churchgate toilets. After hurried sex, he gets rid of the boy afraid he may be a hustler. During the Mumbai riots, he suddenly finds himself concerned about the boy's whereabouts and safety. He discovers that he has fallen in love with Milind and sets out to look for him. A chance encounter gets them together again and here begins a relationship between these two very separate people, one, an older, richer intellectually superior journalist, who is elegant and comfortable with the upper echelons of society. The other partner is a 'tempo-vary' employee, either as a peon or a fetch-and-carry person at best, with the most disgusting habits of personal and spatial hygiene. All of that doesn't matter to Yudi as he goes off for a vacation with his boyfriend meets him for beer every Friday and even lives with him for a week at his house. However, Milind who has various issues with 'manliness', money and his own situation does not share Yudi's comfort levels with his sexuality. So he has no qualms about disappearing from Yudi's life, and that of his family's to work in a modeling-cum-call-boy agency run by a closet bisexual film star. Here he gets picked up by "ad men, mad men, corporates, corporators and once a retired army general. Everything from start to finish happened in the poshest surroundings`85and they copulated in hotel, motels, farmhouses, beach houses, holiday inns and holiday resorts." Milind resurfaces only to marry a girl of his parent's choice and live a 'normal' life. In the end, however, it is to Yudi he returns as mutual need brings them together. Milind's is for money and Yudi's for love.

As Raja Rao explores gay relationships, he doesn't forget to introduce the exploration of hetro-homo relationship as well in the character of Gauri, who in spite of being aware of Yudi's sexuality preferences, is madly in love with him and wants to marry him. She only comes to terms that she cannot reclaim him when she decides that she must think of him as a 'sister'. " From that day onwards, Gauri's brain was conditioned at last, into viewing Yudi as a non-sexual object." All said, Rao paints skilful pictures of his characters even when the reader meets them but briefly.

The book is replete with wonderfully irreverent one-liners and observations. Rao entertains and amuses as he follows the romances of his middle-aged hero. For the reader, however, there is only one word of advice. Kindly put away your prejudices, at least for the space of time it takes to read this novel, if you truly want to enjoy the reading experience.