‘Funny Boy’ By Shyam Selvadurai Analysis

“I would be caught between the boys’ and the girls’ worlds, not belonging or wanted in either.” -Arjie Chelvaratnam, Chapter 1

Shyam Selvadurai’s remarkable debut novel FUNNY BOY, serves as a bildungsroman for a boy Arjie (the protagonist), who discovers his sexuality in the midst of the political turmoil in Sri Lanka. It is a bittersweet journey of attaining maturity and of sexual awakening of a child.

This novel consist of six chapters, each chapter dealing with the commotion in the life of the adults and what impact it leaves on Ajie’s life. It is through his eyes the story unfolds and we meet the delightful yet sometimes whimsical demeanour of the characters. It is through these six chapters that revels an aspect of adult life to Arjie and largely contribute to the story of the novel. This coming to age novel shows the inner confusion and self-doubt of a child over his identity and realisation of his true self. The author emphasises on the reaction of the people i.e., calling something ‘funny’ that seems unusual to them.

“Because the sky is high and pigs can’t fly.”

This novel focuses on a lot more than just sexuality. It takes us on a journey from a luminous simplicity of childhood days to the obscure shaded world of the adults. It rings in Arjie’s reaction to this enigmatic and unintelligible world of the grown-ups. The forlorn breaking of the expectations, loss of innocence of 7-year-old Arjie and striking of reality from his love-comic world, would leave an everlasting lore on him. Selvadurai very subtly puts forth the issues of the gender, marriage, politics, minority community through a child’s perspective. How the bizarre issues like meeting a person of other community, of being and acting like a man, not letting play bride-bride starts making sense to him.

The political turmoil and this fight for survival in Sri Lanka between the Sinhalese and Tamils seems to symbolise the personal situation and the inner fight of Arjie with himself, for identity.

Selvadurai has come up with sensitive topics and woven them in such a way that one tends to outshines the other. He paints a picture with perfect balance and showcasing the interrelatabilityof political and personal part of the plot. This novel is one of the best LGBTQ+ literature reads, and the feature of it that it is through a child’s perspective makes it even a more phenomenal.