This was, for me, a book of not quites. To begin with, the description does no justice to the content of the book. It gives you an appearance that the book will be some form of a forbidden gay romance, but it was not quite that. 

It was a book of self-discovery for the protagonist, but again, it was not quite that. 

It was a book of respecting and cherishing and returning to ones roots, but again, not quite that. 

It was a book of a boy finding his purpose in life, but it was yet again not quite that. 

It was a book about a boy realising how he was different from his peers in terms of what he wanted from life, but it was not quite that. 

Neither was it quite a book where a boy finds his awakening- either in the slums, in the stage, in a political party or in the monastery.

It was a beautifully written book of not quites. The writing, the descriptions, the words describing smells and shapes and feels were beautiful, but I wish this writing was used to write some book that was something, because this book felt like a whole lot of nothing.

The first hundred or so pages were full of repetitive descriptions and a story that was largely stagnant and when the story finally jumped ahead, it was not quite what you'd expected the first half or so to build up to. 

And to me somehow (and i am not sure if that was the purpose of if there was a purpose to these descriptions at all), most aspects of the book seemed unlikable. For example, the monastery, Kamal Swami, Kajol, the things Anirvan ends up with are just, in general, unlikable things, at least to me. And so I am not sure if it was supposed to be that way, but it was certainly not likable and did not seem worth the slow pace of the book. 

The descriptions, the writing and the flow of the book is brilliant but the book was not quite that good.