Mahmud and Ayaz

by R Raj Rao

Using the legendary love story of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni and his Turkish slave-cum-lover Ayaz as the backdrop, Mahmud and Ayaz, set in contemporary Mumbai, tells the story of a young, casually radicalized Muslim man, Mahmud Fakhar, who has failed to qualify for the IAS-where he had hoped to make a lot of money, but also to weaken the system from within-and has barely managed a temporary teaching job in a second-rate college. At a loose end after his entire family dies in the 2015 Hajj stampede, he runs into a homeless Hindu lad, the illegitimate son of a tamasha dancer, hires him as his domestic servant, converts him to Islam, re-names him Ayaz, and begins an affair with him.

It is the start of an unusual life together, and a series of journeys. Their travels take them to Somnath in the great Sultan's footsteps, and then to Kashmir, as they are drawn into a life of petty and not-so-petty crime and, almost, of militancy. After some odd adventures, the wheel comes full circle when their wayward life ends again in Mumbai, in the neighborhood of Mahmud's birth, even as AIDS afflicts one of them.

Narrated with irreverent, deadpan humour, R. Raj Rao's new novel is funny, subversive, provocative and wonderfully rude. It is unlike any love story-gay or straight-that Indian readers would expect.

272 pages, Paperback

Published February 20, 2024

Reviews

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ajmal Kasab was hanged in Pune’s Yerwada Jail on 21 November 2012. Mahmud Fakhar was on the lawns of Bombay University, studying for his IAS prelims, when he heard the news of the hanging on a student’s mobile phone. The hanging pained him, it made him angry. He saw it as yet. Another instance of the persecution of Muslims by Hindu India.”

With these opening words R. Raj Rao draws you into ‘Mahmud and Ayaz’, the novel which tells the story of the slightly radicalised Mahmud Fakhar and his unlikely love story with a homeless Hindu lad. Mahmud, as the book says, “…. was born in Bombay in 1989. The year of Mahmud’s birth, as the author reminds us, was “a tumultuous one for Indian Muslims. Islamic separatism began in Jammu and Kashmir that year…. (it also) coincided with L.K. Advani’s Rath Yatra, which would culminate in the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya.” Given the environment he grew up in, it is no wonder that Mahmud grew up with the seeds of hatred and discontent in his brain.”........
Detailed review here: https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2024/03/...

[Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Honestly, it was a very fast read for me and this was the first time I’ve read a book on Indian history and present situation. With the number of references that were used here were true it was quite hard for me to distinguish it from reality. Mahmud’s character (even doe I didn’t liked him a lot because of his unhinged thoughts) was true to its beliefs and views. I liked how throughout the story his thoughts remain intact. Ayaz on the other hand - I had mixed feelings about him. However, they both complimented each other.

I was so glad they didn’t go on with the job they had by the end of the book and the fact that Mahmud was kinda reluctant to all those views made me feel better.

The open ending made me disappointed. I felt the author rushed towards the end. I really was intrigued what actually happened to them but now I think I had to get my own imagination to run wild.

[Naina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts well, writing is a little blotchy, feels like an aggregation of news reports in some parts - especially in the last chapter. Plus it felt like there was a touch of Islamophobia as well. What I thought started off as sarcasm, ended up being real till the end. Not sure I'd read it without a political buzz humming at the back of my mind in Modi's India - where everything, right or left, feels like propaganda. Had it been written in another time, I was more likely to have judged it less.

[Mahika]

Not rating it here because a Scroll review is comingggg