'Q&A' by Vikas Swarup - who's an unreconstructed Indian macho kind of guy

I'd heard jolly things about Vikas Swarup's Q&A. It seemed a perfect book for a journey - simple language, big print, engaging characters.
It is a breezy book with novel construction - the chronology following the run of questions in a 'Who wants to be a Millionaire?' style contest.
Added to the usual 'wait and see how it turns out' elements, I read on to see if Swarup would ameliorate the book's homophobia before it ended. No such luck.
We have two gay characters in the book. Both of them are paedophiles. The first is a film star. From the 'brush of homosexuality'film magazine tarnishes the actor Q&A's narrator leaps to the assertion, "I, too, know of perverts and what they do to unsuspecting boys. In dark halls. In public toilets. In municipal gardens. In juvenile homes.'
So gays are perverts and prey on boys in dark places and those in care.
You might, just conceivably, excuse such homophobia as being true to a character - and hope that it is set in context within the book. No such excuse allowable for Swarup here. In the pages of personal statements he gives at the end of the book he explicitly identifies his own views with his character's.
He posits Alan Hollinghurst's 'A Line of Beauty' as one of is favourite books. What did he do, trawl through it to find things that disgusted him?
Mothers don't come out of the book too well either. Nor do brothers. But then those categories are hardly subjects of regular smear campaigns. I doubt the book's homophobia has done the book any harm in sales terms. Swarup's pandering to the masses.
I could do with learning about some positive views of gays in Indian or African novels. In Zimbabwe in January a female sculptor provoked a furore by including a wooden figure of two naked females embracing, called 'Lovers'. Artist and gallery manager were anxious for the world to know they weren't condoning homosexuality, indeed the manager wanted the press to know she was a mother. It was simply that lesbians existed so they could be represented in art. That's better than denial but they have a long way to go.
And Swarup has even further. Homosexuality is already illegal in India, gays driven to the margins or to suicide. One hopes that artists will learn how to challenge the evils of their society, not milk them.

A feature on being gay in India