Funny Boy

“I was able to leave the constraints of my self and ascend into another, more brilliant, more beautiful self, a self to whom this day was dedicated, and around whom the world…seemed to revolve.” 

Arjie thrills in being the bride in the bride-bride game because he gets to wear the bride’s sari. He can unleash a side of himself—his true self—to the world, which he feels is beautiful. He longs to be adored like a beautiful bride. Arjie is not yet aware of how society disapproves of boys who wear feminine clothing, because it means that they might be “funny” or not masculine enough.

“After all, darling, what a thing, forced to work as a servant in a whitey’s house to make ends meet.” 

Here, Amma is pitying Kanthi Aunty, who worked as a servant for a white family overseas. We understand through this dialogue that class matters very much to Arjie’s family, as they are a wealthy family and look down upon people who have to do work blue-collar work to survive. 

“‘Ey, Chelva,’ Cyril Uncle cried out jovially to my father, ‘looks like you have a funny one here.’” 

Here, Cyril Uncle remarks to Appa that Arjie is “funny,” thus implying that Arjie is not quite a typical boy as he likes traditionally feminine activities like dressing up in a sari. It also is a coded way to imply that Arjie is gay. 

“Because the sky is so high and pigs can’t fly, that’s why.” 

Here, Amma responds to Arjie asking why he can no longer play bride-bride with the girls and must instead play cricket with the boys. She is effectively laying out the gender norms that society has deemed appropriate for boys and girls. She implies that just as the laws of nature dictate that pigs cannot fly, the laws of society dictate that boys cannot play dress-up with girls. The rules are unchangeable, according to Amma and other adults, but Arjie is not so sure. 

“And then there would be the loneliness. I would be caught between the boys’ and girls’ worlds, not belonging or wanted in either.” 

Here, Arjie embarks upon figuring out his true self and trying to find a place in society that accepts him—no easy task for a “funny” boy in Sri Lanka. As his parents have forbidden him from playing with the girls, he can no longer openly share that side of himself that enjoys stereotypically feminine activities. But he also doesn’t enjoy activities like cricket, which are usually associated with boys. Arjie feels adrift: he fits in nowhere.

“‘What a lovely boy,’ she said. ‘Should have been a girl with those eyelashes.’” 

Doris Aunty makes this statement to Radha Aunty upon meeting Arjie. Her words reflect Radha Aunty’s comments that Arjie would have been a pretty girl. From these repeated comments, we get the sense that Arjie appears effeminate, which may be another reason why Diggy and others mock him for being “funny.”

“Ammachi had said he was betraying the Tamils, but my father had said there was no use putting me in a Tamil class when Sinhalese was ‘the real language of the future.’” 

Appa puts Arjie into Sinhalese classes—even though Arjie is a Tamil—because he believes Sinhalese will be more useful, since the majority of the population and the government is Sinhalese. However, Ammachi’s father was killed during anti-Tamil riots, and she believes that Appa is betraying the Tamil people by not honoring their cultural heritage. This passage illustrates the divides even among Tamils as they determine how they want to assimilate—or not—into the dominant Sinhalese society. 

“As I listened to its rhythmic sound, I thought of her love comics and how fervently I had believed in them; believed that if two people loved each other everything was possible. Now, I knew that this was not so.” 

Before meeting Radha Aunty, Arjie entertains wildly unrealistic notions of love and marriage. After witnessing Radha Aunty’s tragic love story with Anil and her subsequent engagement to a man that she does not love, Arjie’s beliefs in love stories has been shattered by the cold reality that love does not necessarily conquer all obstacles, including a potential marriage between two people on opposite sides of an ethnic conflict

“I was aware that it was a significant thing, a momentous event in my life even, but, like a newspaper report on an earthquake or volcanic eruption, it seemed something that happened outside my reality, my world.” 

Arjie reflects on Daryl Uncle’s killing and considers that it should feel like an important moment in his life. However, when he looks around and sees other Sri Lankans going about their normal business, he realizes that life goes on in even in the wake of tragedy. Daryl Uncle’s death seems unreal in the face of ordinary life. 

“People can’t get away with these things. This is a democracy, for God’s sake.” 

Amma believes that Daryl Uncle has been killed by Sri Lankan police, who covered up his death as an accidental drowning. She is aghast that such an abuse of power and illegal killing can happen in a democratic state, which serves as a warning that even seemingly democratic governments can take the law into their own hands when there is no one to check their power.

“But where does one turn when the police and government are offenders?” 

Following Daryl Uncle’s death—likely at the hands of state police—Amma’s steadfast faith in the goodness of the Sri Lankan government is shattered. This is turning point, transforming Amma from a believer in the Sri Lankan state and opponent of the Tamil Tigers to someone who understands what the Tigers are fighting against: injustice. The novel makes clear here the moral grey area between “right” and “wrong” sides of a conflict. 

“These days, one must be like the three wise monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” 

Q.C. Uncle offers this advice to Amma after she asks him to help her due to his background in civil rights. To Amma’s surprise, he says that there is no use pursuing civil rights when the politicians are so dangerous and reckless now, and that it’s best to shut up and overlook any injustice in order to protect oneself. This begs the question: if even civil rights lawyers are not willing to stand up to injustice, then who will? 

“To people like you, we are not even human beings.”

The mother of Somaratne—Daryl’s servant boy—scolds Amma for coming to their village to ask him questions about Daryl’s likely murder. She accuses Amma of being a rich woman from the capital city of Colombo who ignores how the rest of the country suffers in this civil war. When Amma does seek to talk to poor Sri Lankans, it only puts them at risk of further violence. This passage highlights the class differences in Sri Lanka and the relative privilege of Arjie’s family, even though they are Tamil.

“It was one of my favorite passages, yet reading it now brought me no pleasure. The world the characters lived in, where good was rewarded and evil punished, seemed suddenly false to me.” 

Arjie recalls a passage from his favorite book Little Women. However, after witnessing the cover-up of Daryl Uncle’s death, Arjie’s perception of the world has shifted. The simple lessons of good and bad people from “Little Women” don’t seem to apply to his world, where bad guys are running the show and good guys like Daryl Uncle get killed.

“As a Tamil, you have to learn to play the game. Play it right, and you can do very well for yourself. The trick is not to make yourself conspicuous. Go around quietly, make your money and don’t step on anyone’s toes.” 

Appa quickly summarizes his core philosophy to Jegan. In order to survive—and perhaps thrive—as a Tamil in Sri Lanka, you need to avoid disturbing anyone in positions of high power, even if that means overlooking injustices. It’s clear that Jegan—a former Tamil Tiger—does not agree with Appa’s philosophy, which points to a divide in how Tamils choose to deal with being members of an oppressed minority group. 

“As my father used to say, ‘It’s small choices of rotten apples.” 

This quote by Jegan emphasizes what little power ordinary Tamils have in Sri Lanka during this period. On one hand, they have to submit to the oppressive Sinhalese government, which tortures and executes them for being Tamil. On the other hand, the Tamil Tigers kill any Tamils who disagree with their methods. Their choices are between one bad option and another bad option, or “rotten apples.”

“The Academy will force you to become a man.” 

Appa tells Arjie this after announcing that he’s transferring Arjie to a new school: the Victoria Academy. Appa has decided that Arjie needs to toughen up, become more manly and shed what Appa believes are atypical habits for a boy (like reading books about female characters). We see that Appa follows traditional gender norms and wants to force Arjie into masculine behaviors that are accepted by society, much to Arjie’s displeasure. 

“How was it that some people got to decide what was correct or not, just or unjust? It had to do with who was in charge; everything had to do with who held power and who didn’t.” 

As Arjie contemplates Shehan’s punishment at the hands of Black Tie, he realizes that those who are in power—such as Black Tie—determine what is just, even when they exercise their power for cruel ends. This moment marks a dramatic shift in Arjie’s understanding, not only of his school’s power dynamics, but of the power dynamics between Tamils and Sinhalese and between the government and ordinary Sri Lankans. So Arjie decides to take power into his own hands for the first time and drive Black Tie out of the school.

“A feeling of numbness, of inevitability, seemed to come over me, as if my destiny had now passed out of my hands.”

Although Arjie has chosen to disrupt Black Tie’s speech by intentionally blundering his recitation of the poem, this line implies that once some decisions are made, destiny takes over and we lose control of our future. This sentiment about destiny—that some things are out of our control—foreshadows the family’s powerlessness in the next chapter, when the riots burn down their home, despite their best efforts to stay out of the conflict.

“I try to remind myself that the house is destroyed, that we will never live in it again, but my heart refuses to understand this.” 

Overwhelmed by all that has happened, Arjie is unable to fully process the horrors that his family has endured in so short a time. Logically, he might understand that his family home is gone, but his heart hasn’t yet comprehended the reality, and so he is unable to fully grieve. 

“How could I have been so blind? Why didn’t I see this coming?” 

Appa feels regret over his willingness to look the other way when violence against Tamils occurred and his over-eagerness to accommodate the Sinhalese to protect his family from danger. He finally realizes that no amount of accommodation or compliance on his part could have shielded his family from the inevitable civil war that will tear apart Sri Lanka.

“I don’t feel at home in Sri Lanka any longer, will never feel safe again.” 

In the span of a mere week, Arjie has fled for his life from an angry mob and lost his family home as well as his grandparents due to a violent civil war that unjustly targets innocent Tamils. His sense of self-identity as a Sri Lankan has been totally shattered.

“I find it impossible to imagine that the world will ever be normal again.” 

Arjie has led a mostly privileged life, and while has witnessed some of the war’s atrocities, he has been mostly sheltered from the worst of the ethnic violence in Sri Lanka. But then the conflict comes to their doorstep in the form of an angry mob, and the family’s illusion that they can maintain their safety and their normal daily routines has been forever lost.