Once Again, Funny Boy

Now 14, Amrith often has black moods — “he felt that familiar inner blackness come in and sweep him out, like a current” — and an utter sense of sadness over the loss of his mother. He knows that the only things that will keep him busy during the upcoming holidays are preparation for an audition for a school play (he wants to play the wronged Desdemona in Othello) and typing lessons at Uncle Lucky’s office.

But then his long-lost cousin from Canada surfaces, and thereby hangs a tale. Amrith will be happy and ecstatic, sad and despondent, and along the way will have come of age. What is wonderful is the freshness — and humour, often times ironic (Amrith can’t understand why Desdemona should take her fate lying down and has an angry outburst with Othello, rather, the character playing the moor, during rehearsal) — Selvadurai brings to the tale, that describes a time and place that is precious and yet lost. Like Michael Ondaatje (Anil’s Ghost), this Sri Lanka-born, Toronto-based writer is brilliant at capturing moments out of that past and freezing it in pristine prose. We are treated to sights and sounds of Sri Lanka, not least the various moods of the sea, that is quite unforgettable.

From the monsoon sea, wild and savage, that had eaten up the beach, in the beginning, we have the sea pulling back in the end, leaving behind greater stretches of beach each day. “The water had returned to a shimmering turquoise, like blue silk shot through with threads of silver.”

In Funny Boy, Arjie’s pain on account of his being another way inclined is devastating: “I was no longer a part of my family in the same way. I now inhabited a world they didn’t understand and into which they couldn’t follow me.” In a way, Amrith’s rite of passage is softer, quieter. “He didn’t know what to do about this thing within him, where to turn, who to appeal to for comfort. He felt the burden of his silence choking him.” Which (the burden of his secret) eases a little when he is able to whisper three words at his mother’s grave: “I am… different.”