Night In Delhi is a fiction queer novel written by Dark Star (2022) author Ranbir Sidhu (he/him) and was released on 16th December 2024. It’s my first time reading his work and I was definitely intrigued by its cover. I know they say it’s not wise to judge a book by its cover but here I was, assuming that the novel is probably slow, romantic and tragic in the same sense perhaps Fleabag (2016) was.
I’m not sure what prompted Fleabag into my mind, but I decided to give this novel a chance on curiosity instincts.
The excerpt chosen invites thought that this might be romantic telling of a one time or once in a lifetime romance telling between two queer people. But I was proven wrong from the very first page as it retells the counter of our nameless narrators’ partner Jaggi pissing on the floor.
A Story That Doesn’t Wait
I know, it doesn’t sound very promising when it dives right into the crudeness of life, a life that most of the people who will read this novel never get to hear or think about. From the get go, I like how it doesn’t waste time before throwing us in the deep end of this story.
It made me question why I thought it was crude– If I had begun distancing myself from this novel because I saw it as a fiction that showed me too much of the real world I didn’t wish to see? But then, in the middle of it all, our narrator is lost listening to Jaggi’s honey voice. It hits me, it’s still romance, maybe not in the way I had expected, but it’s romance nonetheless.
Each character has their moments of being worse, and some even straight up evil, but there are cracks of vulnerability. That lets you in for a brief moment before you’re pulled to the next one. Just like how our narrator refuses to let you ponder over one detail for too long.
I got to ask the author, Ranbir Sidhu, about his inspiration for his stories and how he approaches these topics and emotions in his book. He says that while he doesn’t ever know why he writes any particular story, very often, for him each book is an internal response to his previous works. Or finding different territory to explore. Sidhu further adds,
“When I write, I make no plans beyond the next sentence, and often not even that. The story unfolds word by word. It allows for a constant sense of surprise, one I hope the reader also experiences.”
Getting Into “Difficult” Narratives
A conflicting thought kept playing in my head questioning how the author felt comfortable diving into the narrator, who is a queer sex worker in Delhi who lives life as he’s separate from the world– a result of marginalisation no doubt.
Sidhu told us that in his tiny immigrant neighborhood in Greece, he’s encountered queer, South Asian sex workers and has always been fascinated with them and the challenges they face on a daily basis. That set the core of his new release, Night In Delhi.
Sidhu shares that when he was young, there was a time when he had to take up sex work in order to survive. So while his experiences line up emotionally and is able to add the nuances of sex trade, he also adds that there’s still a geographical divide between him and the narrator–because he was based in the US.
There’s this logic, rationale thought that you get instantly locked in from the get go, that this is my life and you’re now going to see a version of life in Delhi in a way you’ve probably never seen. It never assumes what you know or don’t know, it’s conversation, where the narrator only gives you context about certain things only as and when he deems you need it. Thus it progresses by unravelling each character in different situations, taking you by surprise but the narrator remains unphased.
Also Read: https://gaysifamily.com/lifestyle/are-we-unlovable-or-is-it-just-capitalism/
Writing Real/Reel Narratives
The writing reminded me of Virginia Woolf’s stream of consciousness way of writing, except here it’s a lot more observation of people rather than just the environment as a whole. It’s very convincing of itself, and of its narrative but to a point where one can find themselves questioning the reliability of the narrator. He remains nameless throughout and doesn’t reflect much over his actions. Simply put, he just does things, there’s no time to dissect beyond.
In a way its fluid in its approach, which is the essence of queerness– a thought which Sidhu himself has validated for me, he says,
“Many of the characters in the book have fluid sexualities, and by letting them live out their lives as themselves, with all their faults, I hope the book makes the argument that a queer life is simply a life, like any other.”
I doubt it’s a book I would be returning to, but it will always be something I’m reminded of. It’s a narrative important to be heard and read widely. It’s not easy to handle the intersectionality of queerness, class and caste in India while writing fiction because it all demands a delicate balance of emotion, expression, and most importantly how you reveal each information.
