Feb 08, 2008  |  By: ZACK ROSEN  | COMMENTS     

Manil Suri, gay author of “The Age of Shiva,” spent the first 20 years of his life in Bombay and in the closet, but after moving to Pittsburgh in 1983, he finally came out. Twenty-five years later, and now living in Silver Spring, Md., Suri says Indian attitudes toward sexual orientation have definitely changed.

“Bombay was really dead, I didn’t know anyone gay back then,” Suri says. “It was invisible, you didn’t see anything in the papers. There was nothing. Now in Bombay there’s a thriving gay community. Time Out Bombay even has a section in the back every week that is a gay section that would’ve been completely unthinkable even 10 years ago. India has changed so dramatically that things have just moved very fast. “

The changing face of India serves as a subtle backdrop to “The Age of Shiva,” but the book primarily tells the story of Meera, a woman trying to forge her own path through the patriarchy of post-independence India. She leaves her father’s rule and marries a man named Dev, who echoes the traditional, misogynistic view of women. Dev’s brother Arya lusts after Meera as well, but she is most invested in a brief and unconsummated romantic attraction to her sister-in-law, Sandhya.

The book’s title, though, refers to Meera’s relationship with her son and the way it mirrors an Oedipal Hindu myth. After a lifetime of less-than-satisfactory relationships with men, Meera’s devotion to her son begins to take on unhealthy aspects (the book begins with an overtly sexual description of the infant breastfeeding).

Writing a woman character did prove a new frontier for Suri — for example, he had to do research on the experience of breast feeding — but he’s still not sure if his sexuality helped him get in the mind of another gender.

“On one hand, you could say that, being gay, you’re able to look past divisions, you’re able to examine these relationships and poke and prod them in new ways,” he says. “But on the other hand, one could argue that I haven’t had the same experiences with women that a straight man might’ve had, so how could I write about a woman? But it did seem to work out — women have told me they identify with Meera.”

SURI IS NO STRANGER TO conflicting viewpoints. A decorated writer — his last novel, “The Death of Vishnu” won the Barnes and Noble Discovery Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award — Suri actually makes his living as a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Suri says there was a time when he was more closeted about being a writer than he was about being gay, due to departmental expectations that a math professor’s free time be spent pursuing math, but since his book came out, other professors have “come out” to him with their extracurricular interests.

Suri is currently spending time on his new book, which will be the third in the trilogy begun with “The Death of Vishnu.” The myth explored in the upcoming book is about the Hindu god Brahma, and it will feature an openly gay character. Though Suri’s books have not so far been overtly autobiographical, this one will be set partly in Bombay and partly in Pittsburgh.

Suri says he’s aware of D.C.’s thriving gay South Asian community and its organizing group, Khush, but the domestic life has left him without much need for urban social outlets.

“I knew some [Khush] members way back, 18 or 20 years ago, but I haven’t kept up with them. I’ve had a partner for about 18 years so I’m getting more and more — I hate to say it — suburban.”