Funny Boy is a famous Novel authored by famous Sri Lankan-Canadian author, Shyam Selvadurai. The novel was originally published in 1994. The central theme of novel is ethnic rivalry, migration and sexual identity.
FUNNY BOY SUMMARY BY SHYAM SELVADURAI
Summary of Funny Boy By Shyam Selvadurai
The central character of novel is Arjun Chelvaratnam ( Arjie ), a Tamil boy who was born in Sri Lanka when there was tension going on between Tamils and Sinhalese. Arjie is homosexual since childhood. Before leaving Sri Lanka, Arjie learns about two things, first is that he is homosexual and second about the tension between Tamils and Sinhalese which is creating a Civil war situation.
The story begins with the childhood life of Arjie who used to go at his grandfather’s home once or twice in month. He used to play with his cousins at his grandfather’s home. These children had two groups one of boys group who plays cricket in balcony and second of girls group who plays wedding game. The interesting thing is Arjie loved to play wedding games with girls. And in game he plays an important role of Bride.
One day, Arjie’s new cousin sister comes and saw him playing a role of Bride in game. She find it weird. She wants to play a role of Bride by herself as she is a girl while Arjie is a boy. But she was very fat so best role for her was Aunty or Mummy role.
One day, an uncle saw Arjie in Bride dress so he started laughing loudly and named him “Funny Boy”. Unlce tells Arjie parents that he wears Bride dresses. When Arjie’s parents learn about it, they ask Arjie to play cricket with boys. He agree to play cricket but he fight with boys as he had no interest to play cricket with them.
Thereafter, Arjie goes back to his girl group to become Bride. When Arjie’s cousin sister see him coming back, she gets angry and fight with him. She humiliated Arjie in front of everyone. There comes Arjie’s grandmother who is characterized as cruel and racist woman.
She blame Arjie as he was playing with girls. Arjie goes to his mother and ask her why people are doing this do him. His mother responded “because the sky is so high pigs can’t fly that’s why”.
The story new features new character, Radha Aunty, who came to India after spending four years in America. At this time, Arjie is 7 years old. Radha Aunty was born and grown up in Sri Lanka. She was in America for 4 years and now she is back. Radha Aunty have plan to marry family friend, Rajan, to whom she met in America. Arjie gets very excited after listening Radha Aunty’s marriage plan as he wanted to see wedding in reality.
Radha Aunty become good friend of Arjie. She allowed Arjie to use her makeup kit as she knows that he like these kinds of things. She take Arjie with her in School Production Drama named “KING AND I”. There she meet a man named, Anil Jayasinghe who is Sinhalese. Anil started showing his interest in Radha. When grandmother learns about it, she gets very angry. She hate Sinhalese as her father was killed by them. So she wants to keep her children away from Sinhalese.
Therefore, she support Tamil Tigers. Grandmother clearly tells Radha that she can’t meet Sinhalese man, Anil. When Arjie saw this dram, he learns about the problems of Sri Lanka. Grandmother threatened Anil’s family to stay away from Radha. Radha doesn’t like it so she by herself goes to meet Anil’s family with Arjie. Radha apologies to Anil’s family but Anil’s father yells at her.
Despite fight between families, Radha and Anil keep meeting each other. When grandmother learns about it, she send Radha to North. Radha decided that she will marry Anil only as he doesn’t care about caste. When Radha was returning from North, Sinhalese attacked on train in which she was coming. She got badly injured. Afterwards, Radha changed her mind and decided that she will marry in her own caste. She engaged with Rajan.
Arjie’s father goes to Europe for Hotel business. The story now introduces new character, Daryl Uncle, a journalist who was born and brought up in Sri Lanka and was in Australia for 15 years. He come to Sri Lanka to cover going on tension. Arjie’s grandmother and Daryl were in relationship before marriage. Arjie’s grandmother still has feelings for Daryl.
Daryl wants to go North to cover news but grandmother doesn’t want him to go as there as his life would be at risk. He can die there. Daryl does not listen to her and goes at North, there Sinhalese attacked him and he died. She inform police officer about it but police doesn’t show seriouseness and after some time his body was found near sea.
Arjie’s grandmother wanted to take this matter to court, but one of their family friend suggest them not to go as everything is in control of Sinhalese. The writer is trying to tell us about the bad condition of Sri Lanka via these stories, like how Tamils were treated at that time.
The story now features new character, Jegan, a son of Arjie’s father who comes to live with Arjie’s family. He came to help Ajie’s father in Hotel business. Before that, Jegan used to work for Tamil Tigers. As Jegan comes into family, he learned about the Homosexual nature of Arjie.
He become good friend of Arjie. Jegan’s appearance in Arjie’s family create a problem for them, Arjie’s father received threats, and in workplace Sinhalese people distance themselves from Arjie’s father. It happened because Jegan was associated with Tamils Tigers.
As Arjie’s father was receiving threat, he fired Jegan from work. Ajie feel like that his father did wrong with Jegan. Thereafter, Arjie’s father send him to strict school named Queen Victoria Academy. He send him in strict school in a hope that they would make him man there. In school, there were groups between Tamils and Sinhalese students. Sinhalese students beat Tamils students as they were stronger than Tamils boys.
In school, Arjie meet a person named Shehan Soyza, who protects him from Sinhalese boys. Arjie felt attraction for Shehan. There comes new character, Black Tie, a school principal who is very strict and discriminate among students. He punish Arjie and Shehan for no reason. One day, Arjie kiss Shehan in school. That was the first time Arjie learn about his homosexuality nature. He also made physical relation with Shehan.
In 1983, there were very dangerous riots in Sri Lanka. The riots were so dangerous that it created Civil war in Sri Lanka. Sinhalese people were burning Tamil’s home in Colombo and government was also supporting Sinhalese.
The Government chooses Tamils name from voting lists and giving it to Sinhalese. And whatever was happening in Sri Lanka, government won’t let it be known to foreign countries. To protect themselves, Arjie’s family decide to run away from the country.
They heard a news that a Tamil family is burned in car alive. They burned Arjie’s house. During riots, Shehan comes to meet Arjie and ask him to watch movie in theatre. Shehan is homosexual but he is Sinhalese, so Arjie knows that Shehan is safe but he isn’t.
At the same time, Arjie heard a bad news that Sinhalese burned his grandparents alive in car. Afterwards, Arjie went to Canada with his family, he met Shehan for the last time but doesn’t feel any emotional connection with him.