Artwork by Siri Raghunayakala
Flipping through the pages of books like Red White & Royal Blue and Heartstopper was life changing. Books have always helped me transcend into different realities, catapulting me into the lives of strange and wonderfully interesting characters. But discovering queer literature did more than help me relate to a flawed character, and provide me with escapism. It allowed me to deconstruct heteronormative ideals of romance and learn just how beautiful reading about queer people is as a young adult.
Through these books, I lived numerous firsts that had once felt impossible for me to have, experiencing the things that so often aren’t shown for queer youth in the media – little moments like the butterflies in your belly during a first kiss, the first time you hold each other’s hands, and the first time you introduce your parents to your boyfriend. These stories made it a little easier to imagine the possibility of a future filled with these firsts.
But the voices in the back of my head were always hungry for something else: characters like me. Characters with homes that smelled like spices and herbs, characters that grew up with a different paradigm of living, and characters that had to grapple with their immigrant identity. What that voice was screaming for was a chance to read about the duality of my two identities, about being queer and South Asian, in a book. So my solution was to do just that: write the queer contemporary romance book that I had spent years searching for in dusty library shelves and romance sections in Barnes & Noble. And thus, A Foreigner’s Guide To Falling In Love was written into existence.
Set in London, the book follows writer and caffeine addict Vir Kashyap, who, one ordinary day, has a chance encounter with dashing American Joe. They spend the day together, visiting Vir’s favorite places, but by evening, both are prepared to never see each other again, recognizing their relationship for what it is: purely attraction. Yet somehow, call it destiny or the will of the universe, they find their way back to each other, over and over again, leading them to reckon with the magnetic pull that draws them to one another, no matter how hard they try to deny its existence.
With this book, I wanted to avoid the traps that authors so often fall into when writing about South Asian characters. There was no mention of caramel-macchiato-skin in lieu of properly introducing my characters’ ethnicities. Instead, the complexity of Vir’s identity is embraced with open arms. From the food he eats, to his closest friends, I sought to include details that would avoid fully assimilating his character to White culture, allowing him to keep the parts of being a South Asian immigrant that so many of us can relate to.
Another important dynamic in the story is Vir’s relationship with his mother. It’s important to show positive relationships between queer South Asian children and their parents, because so often in shows and movies we see Desi families portrayed as misunderstanding of their kids queer identities. So, it was necessary for me to write about a relationship that did not focus strictly on Vir’s sexuality. We see Vir’s mother actively trying to find a good boyfriend for Vir – Because to Lalita Lal, settling down and finding a nice husband is something that’s not just reserved for straight women. And no matter what life challenge Vir faces, his mother is always there, knocking at his door with a box of food, and an open ear.
A Foreigner’s Guide to Falling In Love was the product of years of wanting a book that I could see myself in and my passion of putting pen to paper (or in this case, fingers to keyboard). It was the result of living in a time where access to gender affirming care is criminalized, and learning about LGBTQ history is penalized. Writing this book was a generational continuation of responding to these issues, like the queer authors who came before me, by creating a safe space within the pages of a novel, where readers could, alongside Vir, fall in love, experience heartbreak, and maybe find themselves along the way.
A Foreigner’s Guide To Falling In Love is available for sale on Amazon.