The Boatman

The six years John Burbidge spent in India in the 1980s as a community development volunteer changed him in many ways, but one stands out from all the rest. It led him to confront a deeply personal secret-his attraction to his own sex. After taking the plunge with masseurs on a Bombay beach, he found himself on a rollercoaster ride of sexual adventuring that went from abstinence to addiction in two action-packed years. A complicating factor in his journey of self-discovery was the tightly knit community in which he lived and worked, with its highly regimented schedule and minimal privacy that forced him to live a double life. There was also his fraught relationship with his mother. Written with honesty, passion and great personal integrity, The Boatman is a bold and fascinating account of the challenges, frustrations and fulfillment of finding love and selfhood in India. It is also an intense and intimate exploration of city life as we don't often know it. Revealing his love affair for India and his deep attraction for its young men, Johns story shows us how, when we dare to immerse ourselves in a culture radically different from our own, we may discover parts of ourselves we never knew existed.