Review: The Secret City by Robin Gupta

Rupert’s intense desire to have fleeting moments of intimacy constitutes much of the action and the reader meets a host of enticing men of various ages, attributes and interests who provide steamy details about the gay underbelly of the city. There’s Charlie, the son of the governor, who has a thing for the working class but “preferred them not to be unwashed”. And the power dynamics between General Cyrus and his ADC Danny O’Brien, where sexual favours guarantee job security and promotions. With Rupert’s third wheeling, that arrangement goes for a toss and a tragicomedy ensues.

The work succeeds in showing the lives of a smattering of queer folk in an era when alternative sexuality was hush-hush. From the looming shadows behind tall trees at the verdant Central Park overlooking Connaught Circle to the mazaar of Hare Bhare Sahib and Sufi Sarmad Shaheed, the Sufi mystics, it offers a rich cartography of queer spaces in the city. One of the most heartwarming subplots is the shared bond between Rafiq and Ahmed, the reincarnations of thirteenth-century Sufi poets Jamali and Kamali “who can’t live without the scent of the other’s body”. Their atypical family of three with Rafiq’s sister as Ahmed’s wife alludes to the now popular phenomenon of a “chosen family”.

In its writing, the novel successfully transcends the barriers of political correctness to present characters who walk on morally slippery ground. When Rupert becomes terrified of being outed after a sexual escapade, a lawyer friend Nirmal remarks: “You must understand we are privileged queens… All of that added to pretty good sex is a valuable package; my policeman won’t risk losing the package with some stupid indiscretion. Of course, there’s fear, too — I’ve never said it, but he knows that I can just as easily put in a word to block an award or a lucrative transfer.” The divide between rich gays and the common ones becomes even clearer when Rupert, shorn of his shimmering clothes and gold chains, tries his luck in the US. This is one of the few places in the novel where his internal conflicts are exposed.

The plot picks up with the proposition of Rupert’s marriage. He agrees without much fuss and marries Gurpreet Kaur of Channi in an elaborate ceremony. Gurpreet soon begins to behave like a vindictive wife and Rupert as a sorry, hapless husband crushed between his desires and familial expectations. Her family is not a bit shaken when she reveals her husband’s sexuality and instead sends her a driver to compensate for a “husband that won’t be a man.” With the entry of Dilsher Singh of Pathankot, who makes love to both the husband and the wife, the plot takes a gripping turn. At this point, the novel skyrockets into intriguing territory and the anguish of jilted love comes alive. However, though this episode has the potential to become the book’s central conflict, it doesn’t become more than a subplot.

The Secret City remains so unilaterally focussed on Rupert’s sexuality that it forgets to give the characters or the plot any other tangents. Except for the incessant flow of money and alcohol, there’s not much to show that the reader is encountering an erstwhile prince bereft of his aristocratic stature and boundless powers. Or that he has a daughter from a wife, who is mentioned occasionally and never becomes more than a prop.

In sum, while the novel teems with interesting characters, the writer fails to deftly weave them into the plot and create a set of interesting conflicts. The sense of interiority that could have provided the required nuance is largely missing and the reader rarely feels sympathy for Rupert. His endless chase for sex begins to feel repetitive, and eventually even like it feeds into the cliched portrayal of gay characters in popular media.

Kinshuk Gupta is the associate editor of Usawa Literary Review and the poetry editor of Jaggery Lit and Mithila Review.

A novel set in a post-Partition India going through spasms of socio-political instability, Robin Gupta’s The Secret City undertakes the onerous task of locating homosexuality in Lutyens Delhi. The protagonist is the young and charismatic prince of Mubarakpur, Rupinder Bir Singh, alias Rupert, who stays unfazed about his sexuality. At the lush parties he hosts in his royal palace, there is always an abundance of glitter and booze. And afterwards, the action moves to an exquisitely decorated bedchamber.

Rupert’s intense desire to have fleeting moments of intimacy constitutes much of the action and the reader meets a host of enticing men of various ages, attributes and interests who provide steamy details about the gay underbelly of the city. There’s Charlie, the son of the governor, who has a thing for the working class but “preferred them not to be unwashed”. And the power dynamics between General Cyrus and his ADC Danny O’Brien, where sexual favours guarantee job security and promotions. With Rupert’s third wheeling, that arrangement goes for a toss and a tragicomedy ensues.

The work succeeds in showing the lives of a smattering of queer folk in an era when alternative sexuality was hush-hush. From the looming shadows behind tall trees at the verdant Central Park overlooking Connaught Circle to the mazaar of Hare Bhare Sahib and Sufi Sarmad Shaheed, the Sufi mystics, it offers a rich cartography of queer spaces in the city. One of the most heartwarming subplots is the shared bond between Rafiq and Ahmed, the reincarnations of thirteenth-century Sufi poets Jamali and Kamali “who can’t live without the scent of the other’s body”. Their atypical family of three with Rafiq’s sister as Ahmed’s wife alludes to the now popular phenomenon of a “chosen family”.

In its writing, the novel successfully transcends the barriers of political correctness to present characters who walk on morally slippery ground. When Rupert becomes terrified of being outed after a sexual escapade, a lawyer friend Nirmal remarks: “You must understand we are privileged queens… All of that added to pretty good sex is a valuable package; my policeman won’t risk losing the package with some stupid indiscretion. Of course, there’s fear, too — I’ve never said it, but he knows that I can just as easily put in a word to block an award or a lucrative transfer.” The divide between rich gays and the common ones becomes even clearer when Rupert, shorn of his shimmering clothes and gold chains, tries his luck in the US. This is one of the few places in the novel where his internal conflicts are exposed.

The plot picks up with the proposition of Rupert’s marriage. He agrees without much fuss and marries Gurpreet Kaur of Channi in an elaborate ceremony. Gurpreet soon begins to behave like a vindictive wife and Rupert as a sorry, hapless husband crushed between his desires and familial expectations. Her family is not a bit shaken when she reveals her husband’s sexuality and instead sends her a driver to compensate for a “husband that won’t be a man.” With the entry of Dilsher Singh of Pathankot, who makes love to both the husband and the wife, the plot takes a gripping turn. At this point, the novel skyrockets into intriguing territory and the anguish of jilted love comes alive. However, though this episode has the potential to become the book’s central conflict, it doesn’t become more than a subplot.

The Secret City remains so unilaterally focussed on Rupert’s sexuality that it forgets to give the characters or the plot any other tangents. Except for the incessant flow of money and alcohol, there’s not much to show that the reader is encountering an erstwhile prince bereft of his aristocratic stature and boundless powers. Or that he has a daughter from a wife, who is mentioned occasionally and never becomes more than a prop.

In sum, while the novel teems with interesting characters, the writer fails to deftly weave them into the plot and create a set of interesting conflicts. The sense of interiority that could have provided the required nuance is largely missing and the reader rarely feels sympathy for Rupert. His endless chase for sex begins to feel repetitive, and eventually even like it feeds into the cliched portrayal of gay characters in popular media.

Kinshuk Gupta is the associate editor of Usawa Literary Review and the poetry editor of Jaggery Lit and Mithila Review.