Funny Boy

by

Shyam Selvadurai

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Funny Boy makes teaching easy.

Radha Aunty Character Analysis

Appa’s younger sister, who comes back to Sri Lanka when Arjie is seven. She is engaged to Rajan Nagendra, whom she met during her four years studying in America. However, she is nothing like the fair-skinned, elegant, formal aunty Arjie was expecting; instead, she is rebellious, freethinking, a poor pianist, and “as dark as a laborer.” But she also lets Arjie dress up in her clothes and wear her makeup, which turns them into best friends. They join a local production of The King and I together, and during their rehearsals they meet Anil Jayasinghe, who starts hitting on Radha and eventually wins her attention. After Ammachi threatens Anil’s family, loudly voices her opposition to Radha seeing a Sinhalese boy, and decides to send Radha to Jaffna to get her away from Anil, she starts to fall for him. However, Aunty Doris’s warnings about forbidden love make her question her feelings, and then she gets attacked by a Sinhalese mob on her way home. A family friend saves her, but half of Radha’s face is badly bruised, and she grows solemn and pessimistic in the following days. She finds herself unable to keep seeing Anil and decides to marry Rajan.

Radha Aunty Quotes in Funny Boy

The Funny Boy quotes below are all either spoken by Radha Aunty or refer to Radha Aunty. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Masculinity and Queerness Theme Icon
).
2. Radha Aunty Quotes

This was not how a bride-to-be was supposed to behave. It was unthinkable that a woman who was on the brink of marriage could look like this and play the piano so badly.

Related Characters: Arjie (speaker), Radha Aunty
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:

"Because he’s an engineer and he doesn’t have insanity in his family."

Related Characters: Arjie (speaker), Radha Aunty, Ammachi, Anil Jayasinghe, Rajan Nagendra
Page Number: 49-50
Explanation and Analysis:

“Be careful. We Sinhalese are losing patience with you Tamils and your arrogance.”

Related Characters: Anil’s Father (speaker), Radha Aunty, Ammachi, Anil Jayasinghe
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:

Radha Aunty didn’t answer for a moment. “Until a few days ago I only thought of Rajan, but now I find myself thinking of Anil as well.”

Mala Aunty sighed. “It’ll never work.”

“But other Sinhalese and Tamil people get married.”

“I know,” Mala Aunty replied, “but they have their par­ents’ consent.

“If two people love each other, the rest is unimportant.”

“No, it isn’t. Ultimately, you have to live in the real world. And without your family you are nothing.”

Related Characters: Radha Aunty (speaker), Mala Aunty (speaker), Arjie, Ammachi, Anil Jayasinghe, Rajan Nagendra, Anil’s Father, Kanthi Aunty
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

Sometimes I wonder if it was all worth it in the end. To have made all those sacrifices. Life is a funny thing, you know. It goes on, whatever decisions you make. Ultimately you have children or don’t have children and then you grow old. Whether you married the person you loved or not seems to become less important as time passes. Sometimes I think that if I had gone to England with them maybe I would have met somebody else….” She clicked her tongue against her teeth and laughed. “Anyway, there’s no point in thinking about that—no?”

Related Characters: Aunty Doris (speaker), Radha Aunty, Anil Jayasinghe, Rajan Nagendra, Mala Aunty
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:
5. The Best School of All Quotes

I felt bitter at the thought that the students he punished were probably the least deserving. They were the ones who had broken his rules—no blinking, no licking of lips, no long hair—a code that was unfair. Right and wrong, fair and unfair had nothing to do with how things really were. I thought of Shehan and myself. What had happened between us in the garage was not wrong. For how could loving Shehan be bad? Yet if my parents or anybody else discovered this love, I would be in terrible trouble. I thought of how unfair this was and I was reminded of things I had seen happen to other people, like Jegan, or even Radha Aunty, who, in their own way, had experienced injustice. 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.

Related Characters: Arjie (speaker), Radha Aunty, Jegan Parameswaran, Black Tie, Shehan Soyza, Mr. Lokubandara
Page Number: 268-269
Explanation and Analysis:
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Radha Aunty Quotes in Funny Boy

The Funny Boy quotes below are all either spoken by Radha Aunty or refer to Radha Aunty. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Masculinity and Queerness Theme Icon
).
2. Radha Aunty Quotes

This was not how a bride-to-be was supposed to behave. It was unthinkable that a woman who was on the brink of marriage could look like this and play the piano so badly.

Related Characters: Arjie (speaker), Radha Aunty
Page Number: 46
Explanation and Analysis:

"Because he’s an engineer and he doesn’t have insanity in his family."

Related Characters: Arjie (speaker), Radha Aunty, Ammachi, Anil Jayasinghe, Rajan Nagendra
Page Number: 49-50
Explanation and Analysis:

“Be careful. We Sinhalese are losing patience with you Tamils and your arrogance.”

Related Characters: Anil’s Father (speaker), Radha Aunty, Ammachi, Anil Jayasinghe
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:

Radha Aunty didn’t answer for a moment. “Until a few days ago I only thought of Rajan, but now I find myself thinking of Anil as well.”

Mala Aunty sighed. “It’ll never work.”

“But other Sinhalese and Tamil people get married.”

“I know,” Mala Aunty replied, “but they have their par­ents’ consent.

“If two people love each other, the rest is unimportant.”

“No, it isn’t. Ultimately, you have to live in the real world. And without your family you are nothing.”

Related Characters: Radha Aunty (speaker), Mala Aunty (speaker), Arjie, Ammachi, Anil Jayasinghe, Rajan Nagendra, Anil’s Father, Kanthi Aunty
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

Sometimes I wonder if it was all worth it in the end. To have made all those sacrifices. Life is a funny thing, you know. It goes on, whatever decisions you make. Ultimately you have children or don’t have children and then you grow old. Whether you married the person you loved or not seems to become less important as time passes. Sometimes I think that if I had gone to England with them maybe I would have met somebody else….” She clicked her tongue against her teeth and laughed. “Anyway, there’s no point in thinking about that—no?”

Related Characters: Aunty Doris (speaker), Radha Aunty, Anil Jayasinghe, Rajan Nagendra, Mala Aunty
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:
5. The Best School of All Quotes

I felt bitter at the thought that the students he punished were probably the least deserving. They were the ones who had broken his rules—no blinking, no licking of lips, no long hair—a code that was unfair. Right and wrong, fair and unfair had nothing to do with how things really were. I thought of Shehan and myself. What had happened between us in the garage was not wrong. For how could loving Shehan be bad? Yet if my parents or anybody else discovered this love, I would be in terrible trouble. I thought of how unfair this was and I was reminded of things I had seen happen to other people, like Jegan, or even Radha Aunty, who, in their own way, had experienced injustice. 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.

Related Characters: Arjie (speaker), Radha Aunty, Jegan Parameswaran, Black Tie, Shehan Soyza, Mr. Lokubandara
Page Number: 268-269
Explanation and Analysis: