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Hostel Room 131

Additional information

By

R. Raj Rao

Publisher

Penguin India

Year Published

2010

Language

English

Description

In the winter of 1978; Siddharth; twenty-three; meets Sudhir; twenty; in a friend’s friend’s room in Pune’s Engineering College Hostel. He falls instantly in love.

A man of unconventional views-he believes; for instance; that the two heroes in Sholay have the hots for each other rather than for the heroines-Siddharth becomes a full-time lover over the next seven years and stubbornly pursues the object of his lust and affection; despite his job as a college lecturer in Bombay.

There are many obstacles along the way; including Sudhir’s family; against whom Siddharth files a police complaint; and Sudhir’s classmates from Belgaum; led by the homophobic Ravi Humbe; who start an anti-Siddharth association. But Siddharth gets support from Gaurav and Vivek, a militant gay pair keen to ambush the enemy.

The author of Boyfriend returns with another irreverent look at India’s gay subculture. Deadpan humour and farce come together in this entertaining love story, giving us a glimpse of what really goes on in a boys’ hostel.

ISBN: 9780143064466

R. Raj Rao is a writer, poet, 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. Rao was one of the first recipients of the newly established QuebecIndia awards. R. Raj Rao is the author of almost a dozen poetry, fiction, plays, biography, and criticism books.
His collection of poems, BomGay, was made into an uncensored short film by the late Riyad Wadia in 1996. Perhaps no other Indian writer’s personal, literary and academic life is steeped in queer culture as much as R. Raj Rao’s.
He is a former Professor and Head of the Department of English at the Savitribai Phule Pune University.
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