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Hostel Room 131 IT is said love is blind. It transcends barriers of age, religion, caste, colour and apparently, even sex. When love is chemistry and sex is a physical expression of the same, it can just as well happen between two consenting adults of the same gender. Matters of heart refuse to be bound by conventional rules. One stricken by it is impervious to all reason.
Hostel Room 131 is the story of Siddharth and Su (Sudhir) who fall in love almost the instant they set eyes on each other. Theirs was a match made in heaven which could just as well have been granted parental approval had it not been for a small glitch; they were both men. The book has all the makings of a great love story, the grand pull of love, disapproving peers, parents who would stop at nothing to keep them apart and diehard friends who would lay their lives to see them together and even a happy ending (depends on your perception of happy, though). Rao takes a tongue-in-cheek look at this unusual story, though he is not condescending in his tone. With a dash of humour and more than a handful of insightful observations, he makes it stand out. Siddharth compares himself to his lover and thinks of the glaring differences, in spite of which they were inseparable. He infers that you should not compare and judge people as they had not been born with the same privileges. It was not something they could chose, they were either born with or without them, making it morally incorrect to look down upon other human beings. He also has a lighter side to him. He goes on translating Bollywood songs into English and tweaks them to suit his cause. He even believes that most of the movies featuring two heroes, especially Sholay, are about homosexuals and that the women folk are just a kabab main haddi! The book does not shy
away from discussing the taboo and talks of the same in a tone that
makes it sound commonplace and very normal. Apart from the homosexual
angle, it also highlights the relationship between eunuchs and kotis.
Rao talks about these associations with respect and puts companionship
in a very important place in any relationship. Though it could really
put off homophobics and it is not for the faint-hearted or those whose
sensibilities are easily ruffled. It does tend to go overboard giving
graphic descriptions of love scenes, which the discerning reader may
not enjoy. On the whole the novel is good to read with its simple
language and effortless essaying.
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R.
Raj Rao is the author of this coming-of-age book on gay sexuality in
India. Hostel Room 131 has been preceded by BomGay and The
Boyfriend, which are considered cult classics. He has also
authored One Day I Locked my Flat in Soul City, Slide Show, The
Wisest Fool on Earth and Other Plays, Nissim Ezekiel: The Authorized
Biography, Ten Indian Writers in Interview, Image of India in the
Indian Novel in English, Whistling in the Dark: Twenty-One Queer
Interviews. He is a pioneering Indian academic who runs a course
on queer literature in his department. He was born in Bombay and now
lives in Pune, where he is professor in the Department of English,
University of Pune.