A historically remarkable and emotionally daring novel; uneven in places, but extraordinarily courageous, intimate and ahead of its time.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4.9/5)
A Forgotten Story of Love, Desire, Friendship and Rebellion
Some books acquire importance not merely because of the quality of their writing, but because of when they were written and what they dared to say. Shibram Chakraborty’s Those Boyhood Years belongs to that rare category. First published in the 1920s and subsequently almost forgotten, the novel is an unusually frank exploration of same-sex love, adolescence, friendship and desire in a period when such subjects were scarcely discussed openly in Indian literature.
The book follows boys and young men whose emotional lives are far more complicated than the conventional moral structures surrounding them allow. At its centre is the relationship between Ashanto and Mohun, two boys who meet in Kolkata and develop an intense attachment that gradually moves beyond ordinary friendship. Around them are characters such as Taresh, Deben and Sudhir, whose lives bring together romance, political rebellion, violence, sacrifice and the pressures imposed by society.
What makes the novel especially striking is not simply that it depicts male desire. It treats affection between boys as something emotionally serious, tender and psychologically complex.
A Novel Remarkably Ahead of Its Time
The book’s historical significance is immediately apparent from its premise. The back-cover description calls it “A forgotten novel first published in the 1920s. A story of same-sex love that was years ahead of its time.”
That claim is justified by the passages reproduced in the book. Chakraborty does not merely hint at the attraction between his characters. He writes about embraces, kisses, longing, jealousy and physical attraction with an openness that would have been extraordinary in its historical context.
The novel’s introduction itself explains its interest in boyhood as a formative period. Chakraborty writes that:
“The unique character of boys is formed as they are led through various incidents in various ways.”
This is important because the novel isn’t simply a romance disguised as a coming-of-age story. It is deeply interested in how childhood and adolescence construct the adults people eventually become. The author argues that the experiences of youth become the building blocks of later life.
That makes the relationship between Ashanto and Mohun more significant. Their affection isn’t treated as an incidental episode. It becomes part of their emotional formation.
Ashanto and Mohun: The Emotional Heart of the Novel
The strongest sections of the book are those dealing with Ashanto and Mohun.
Their first meeting is presented almost as an awakening. Ashanto notices Mohun at a cinema and becomes fascinated by him. The attraction is described through the language of beauty, hesitation and fascination rather than simply physical desire.
One particularly revealing passage describes Ashanto watching the boy:
The simplicity of this moment is precisely what makes it effective. There is no elaborate explanation of sexuality. There is simply attraction.
“Such was his sudden liking for the boy that, even though hesitant, Ashanto could not tear his eyes away from him.”
The relationship subsequently becomes more intimate. At one point, Ashanto and Mohun share a deeply affectionate moment, with Ashanto allowing Mohun to rest against him and touching his hair. The author makes the emotional significance unmistakable.
Later, Mohun recalls his feelings in words that are perhaps among the most openly romantic in the book:
“As long as there be soul within this body / I belong to you, you belong to me.”
This is not presented as a joke, nor as a temporary adolescent curiosity. The language is that of devotion.
The novel therefore challenges the assumption that emotional intimacy between boys must automatically be dismissed as innocent friendship. Chakraborty allows his characters to experience love on their own terms.
Love Under the Shadow of Society
Yet the novel is not naïve about the world surrounding its characters. Love exists alongside fear, secrecy, violence and social judgement.
The boys live in an environment in which their behaviour is constantly observed. Hostel authorities police their movements, boys are subjected to discipline, and rumours can become dangerous. The relationship between Ashanto and Mohun therefore exists in a space of concealment.
This tension becomes especially powerful when Ashanto worries about the consequences of their closeness. At one point, he says:
“You do know, don’t you, that it’s against the rules for two to sleep together!”
The statement has a double significance. On the surface, it concerns hostel rules. Beneath it lies the larger question of what society permits people to do with their emotions.
Ashanto’s response is particularly moving:
“From tonight, I will sleep here. Or you will sleep in my room.”
The scene demonstrates one of the novel’s recurring strengths: affection becomes an act of resistance.
Boyhood, Friendship and the Construction of Identity
Although the central relationship is romantic, Those Boyhood Years is also a book about friendship.
Deben and Sudhir’s story introduces a very different form of male intimacy. Their relationship is intertwined with revolutionary politics, danger and sacrifice. Sudhir becomes involved with an underground revolutionary organisation, while Deben is drawn into its world.
Their friendship is expressed through extraordinary loyalty. When Sudhir prepares for a dangerous confrontation, Deben refuses to abandon him. The language of brotherhood repeatedly overlaps with the language of emotional devotion.
One particularly striking line comes from Sudhir:
“My life is yours, I have dedicated it to you, and will last a few more days, as wished by you.”
This passage demonstrates how Chakraborty repeatedly breaks down rigid distinctions between friendship, brotherhood, loyalty and love.
The novel seems to suggest that young men possess an emotional vocabulary much richer than the social world permits them to acknowledge.
Politics, Revolution and Violence
The book’s other major strand is its depiction of revolutionary Bengal.
Deben and Sudhir’s storyline moves the novel away from romance and into political intrigue. Secret meetings, coded messages, weapons, police surveillance and revolutionary activity create a thriller-like atmosphere.
The scenes surrounding Sudhir and his comrades are particularly dramatic. The revolutionaries understand that they may die, yet they continue because they believe that freedom is worth the sacrifice.
The confrontation with the police culminates in the death of Durjoy, whose final moments are among the most cinematic passages in the novel. His last words to Sudhir are:
“They are here. Run, run!”
The scene gives the political narrative genuine emotional weight.
Interestingly, the revolutionary plot also mirrors the romantic one. Both involve secrecy, danger and forbidden loyalties. Both require the characters to choose between social conformity and personal conviction.
The Hostel as a Microcosm of Society
Another effective element is the recurring depiction of hostel life.
The hostel is presented as a miniature society in which boys are watched, disciplined and judged. Superintendent Taresh conducts nighttime inspections and attempts to discover what the boys are doing.
The passages on pages 130–131 are particularly revealing. Taresh secretly observes the sleeping boys, listening to their dreams and conversations. One boy cries out in his sleep, while another dreams of being chased by an elephant.
These apparently small episodes reveal Chakraborty’s interest in the unconscious life of young people. What the boys cannot say while awake emerges in dreams.
The hostel authorities may control behaviour, but they cannot control imagination.
Desire, Jealousy and Moral Ambiguity
The novel does not romanticise every form of desire. One of its most disturbing sections involves Taresh’s attraction to Mohun and his subsequent shame and anger.
On page 111, the narration describes Taresh’s feelings after kissing Mohun:
“This furtive search for a kiss suggested so many other disgusting matters to Satish that he could not stand the air in the room for one more moment.”
The passage is complicated because it explores desire alongside repression and self-disgust.
This is one of the book’s more sophisticated aspects. Chakraborty recognises that sexuality isn’t simply about attraction. It can also involve shame, jealousy, possessiveness, fear and the struggle between desire and social morality.
The Writing: Philosophical, Romantic and Sometimes Excessive
Chakraborty’s prose is highly literary and frequently philosophical. At times, his descriptions of emotion become almost lyrical.
The book’s introduction explains his interest in the psychological world of young people, arguing that adolescence shapes the future character of a nation. That ambition gives the novel considerable intellectual depth.
However, modern readers may occasionally find the prose overly elaborate. The narration sometimes pauses the story to make philosophical observations about love, youth, morality and human nature.
There are also moments when the revolutionary plot feels melodramatic. Characters sometimes speak in grand declarations rather than ordinary conversation.
Yet these qualities should also be understood historically. The novel belongs to an earlier literary tradition in which emotion was often expressed with considerable rhetorical intensity.
A Bold Treatment of Same-Sex Love
The greatest achievement of Those Boyhood Years is its refusal to reduce same-sex affection to a literary curiosity.
The back-cover description rightly emphasises that Chakraborty writes with “astonishing openness” about the hugs, caresses and kisses shared by the boys. The novel also does something more important: it gives these relationships emotional legitimacy.
Ashanto and Mohun experience tenderness, attraction, jealousy, fear and devotion. Their relationship is not merely a plot device. It is one of the ways through which the novel asks what love actually means.
The author even explicitly reflects on sexual attraction in the preliminary material, writing about it as an expression of the broader “Life Force” and suggesting that sexuality is connected to the awakening of the inner life.
For a work originating in the 1920s, this is remarkable.
Conclusion: A Rediscovered Piece of Indian Literary History
Those Boyhood Years is imperfect, occasionally melodramatic and sometimes philosophically overextended. But judging it solely by contemporary literary conventions would miss what makes it remarkable.
This is a novel that was attempting something unusually bold: to place male emotional and romantic intimacy at the centre of an Indian story at a time when such representations were extraordinarily rare.
Its world is populated by boys falling in love, friends risking their lives for one another, revolutionaries confronting colonial authority, and young people trying to understand desires that society does not necessarily give them the language to express.
Most importantly, Chakraborty understands that boyhood is not merely a preliminary stage before adulthood. It is where identity, memory, desire and emotional attachments are formed.
The novel’s own description of youth is therefore an appropriate summary of its ambition: childhood is where the building blocks of adult life are constructed.
For modern readers, Those Boyhood Years is valuable not only as an early queer literary text but also as a fascinating portrait of Bengal, youth and revolutionary idealism. Its rediscovery allows us to reconsider the history of Indian literature and recognise that stories of same-sex love were being imagined and written in India much earlier than the mainstream literary canon often suggests.
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