Life as I find it

Who in India hasn’t encountered these clapping, lewd “female” looking presumably males? Indian hijras are a right menace in most public areas, traffic signals, parks, even homes, if they catch wind of celebrations happening. What is this scene really? Who are these people?

Obviously, they are men, dressed as women, but what is behind that obvious first experience?

Eunuchs have traditionally been guardians of harems, in the times of kings, as I recall from some ancient books. So they seem to have existed for a long time. Many people believe blessings and curses from castrated hijras to be particularly potent, so that gives them a chance to make a living out on the streets in a glorified form of begging, peddling their good wishes and threatening with curses to get money from people passing. Others get together as a group with musical instruments and fancy clothes and perform song and dance routines at weddings and other auspicious occasions and earn slightly better. Still others work as prostitutes.

Until I had the fortune to meet some really interesting people among them, I really hadn’t spared them a thought beyond fury if they tried to get pushy with me. Then I met Geeta, and recently, Anjali and Sunita. I came to know the people behind these threatening personalities. They work toward bringing reform in the lives of the transgender community, as they like to refer to themselves with respect.

I learned about the difficulties their lives are faced with all the time. Particularly touching was once, when Noorie said that when in a rickshaw with a girl she preferred to be dropped home first, as if she got molested, no one would come to her help, and even the cops might molest her for complaining.

Another was when Sowmya spoke of the love she has for her sister and family that she is unable to express and be close with them, because society drives prejudices in the way. Aarti remembers being harassed even as a child, for being “delicate”.

This seems to be a common factor. Some times in their teenage years, they discovered that they weren’t really interested in girls as much as in boys, and identified with women better than with men. Acting on these impulses, and even becoming aware of them, simply intensified them, and they soon started seeming obviously “different”. Soon, there remained little choice but to leave their homes and join trans-gender communities and be among people like them, because others rarely would accept them.

In rare cases, their genitals are not “properly male” and in others, pursuing a profession like prostitution makes them undesirable. They are then castrated in some “home treatment” fashion, rarely in a hygienic manner, or with the benefit of anesthetic. The idea is to look as female as they can. Not all hijaras are castrated, though many are. This also creates other hormonal imbalances that they need medical help with. Few doctors are willing to entertain them.

Transgenders face a whole load of problems in their lives - from practical respect and acceptance problems, to finding accommodation and occupations beyond begging and prostitution. In a world where forms give you options of male and female, they have no box to tick. Ration cards and passports are problems. Claiming justice is a problem. Self-esteem and assertiveness is a problem for all their loud body language. Health care and AIDS is a huge problem. The bottom line is money and survival.

A touching look at the legal, social and religious aspects of being a hijra can be cound in this article

If we want less of “these hijras” harrassing us on the streets, we also need to be willing to be ok with them in other areas when they are working honestly. Who cares if a web designer is male or female or transgender? Or someone working in an office, or a reception person, or a tailor? It is silly inhibitions and a fear of the unknown that keeps us from even sparing them a second glance. We keep our distance with our contempt and hide our fear behind our aloof masks.

Some interesting means of employment and income are slowly creeping into public consciousness. Films employ transgenders to do their usual lewd routines, which earns them decent money, but is hated by many as an insensitive showcase of their plight, and reinforcing their image in the mainstream society as not particularly appealing individuals. Using their song and dance routines to collect over due taxes from defaulters follows the same lines, but firmly projects them as people working on the side of “the good” and seems to be getting interesting results as seen here. Perhaps, once we are able to see them as constructive workers, we might be able to offer them work beyond embarrassing people into paying money.

Luckily, there are organizations working with them. Some have even been started by educated transgender professionals to reach out to others like them. I suggest that we as people make that special effort not to cringe and turn away, but to deal with them as normally as we can, and see if we really like or dislike them, like we do with any other person. Not all of them are charming, and not all of them are bad. Can we look at the people more than their appearances?

*names changed to respect privacy

Edit: As routine maintenance of this site, I sometimes check to see what people are searching for, when they land up here. Many visitors from Europe land up here searching for conditions of this community, or information on what they are. The most popular search from India is “photo boy castrated India”. I find it sad that the leading interest in them is still morbid sexual curiosity. Very few searches from India actually have words that are asking about the people very few Indians really know. It is a long and uphill struggle.

Hmm….. Coming full circle. We are back to selections, and inexplicable decisions. I guess the process can’t really be transparent and the logic behind it cannot really be explained to the public. After all, what are we, but a bunch of idiots trying to look at television screens when matches come on. It would really be a great thing, if we could be aware of the rationale behind selections, but then I guess it might also backfire.

We have our new teams for our upcoming matches with Bangladesh. Yeah that very same Bangladesh that neatly put us out of the cup, while losing to every team that bothered to play well, including Ireland (who got Pakistan out).

I guess we don’t have much of a choice except winning these matches flat out, in a non-negotiable manner, if we really want to make anything out of our cricket fans and their support.

The teams are out, as of yesterday. I was planning to write about it immediately, but thought it might be a good idea to breathe in, breathe out, think and then hit the key board.

The teams we have now are:

One-day squad: Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Mahendra Dhoni, Dinesh Karthick, Yuvraj Singh, Manoj Tiwari, Shantakumaran Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Zaheer Khan, Rudrapratap Singh, Piyush Chawla, Ramesh Powar and Dinesh Mongia.

Test team: Rahul Dravid (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, V.V.S. Laxman, Mahendra Dhoni, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Yuvraj Singh, Wasim Jaffer, Zaheer Khan, Dinesh Karthick, Shantakumaran Sreesanth, Vikram Singh, Munaf Patel, Ramesh Powar and Rajesh Pawar.

Rahul Dravid is still the captain. Good. He plays well, and is a soft touch, bringing and keeping the team together. A little ambition and determined engaging of the players if expressed with a little more “demanding” leadership will do the trick. I think the panic from our recent experience will provide some of the fire to help him be and keep the team more on the edge of happenings.

Some “explanations” were given about how Sachin and Ganguly were “rested” for the ODIs. Whats rested? They can play the tests, but not the One days? What kind of rest is that? They should have just had the guts to come out and say that they were dropped. They are the selectors and they are doing what they believe in. If they aren’t firm about standing firm in their selection and choices for taking or dropping players, when is the confidence in putting together a team EVER going to come?

Actually, I like it that Ganguly is out of the One day matches and playing in the Tests. he is a good player, just that he seems to be hatchin the wicket when we need runs on the board. This might be exactly what we need in the longer test matches. But Sachin? Can’t say. If this is about form…. or if it is simply experimentation….. Depends on what prompted this move. He is not playing that sure fire game anymore, but he does have a great deal of experience.

“Vengsarkar said the senior players were given some time off in the three one-day internationals against Bangladesh since India had a packed one-day and test schedule in the year ahead.” Hmm….. Let’s see.

I know of one player who should have been out even before Sachin and that is Sehwag. What in the world is he doing on the team? If he is not in form, why is he playing? Or are teams for international cricket some official paid time for getting into form? Nothing against him. I absolutely love him when he is “firing” but this is a team selection for heaven’s sake. We need players playing at their peak out here. Finding those peaks can happen elsewhere. Particularly after our very embarrassing show at the World Cup. He’s not on the test team, which is where he actually does ok. Anyway, he does bowl well in a tight spot, so I guess with Harbajan Singh, Irfan Pathan and Ajit Agarkar missing, he might come in handy on that front.

Kumble is still playing on the test team. Dinesh Mongia is back and we have some unknown factors in Manoj Tewari (a 21 year old batsman) and Piyush Chawla (leg spinner), Rudra Pratap Singh (left-arm seamer), Ramesh Powar (off-spinner). Team India seems to be in a serious reshuffle. Young blood and opportunity seems to be the note selectors are trying to strike here.

The overall impression I get from this is that Selectors are now taking a good hard look at performance or the potential for performance rather than histories, and it might just be a good thing, where every player on the team will eventually have to earn his place there through his presence on the field than his reputation. It could work well for us in the long run, if this is what we are now moving toward.

The Indian team will leave for Bangladesh on May 7 for the month-long series beginning May 10. Hopefully, it will turn out to be better for our collective ego and a balm on recent memories.