Glass half overlooked
0. A request
This is something new that I am
trying out. It will be a series of short stories. The numbers in the title will
let you what part you are on. This is just to help you keep track of the
series, in case I post other blogs in between, or if you start from say, 2nd or
3rd part. You can always go back and check out the first part.
Although the stories are fictional,
the quotes supporting the stories are real sentiments of really brilliant and
non-fictional personalities. Feel free to search these names and their
accounts.
There is more to it. You will
notice traces of transphobia in, around, and all over these stories. Trace
those traces. Don't be afraid to trace them to yourself. I know you have those
traces because I have them too.
I grew up with transphobia and I
have to admit that writing these stories, while acknowledging & keeping
those biases at bay, was a difficult task and a learning process. So, if you
are a trans person or an ally and you find anything inappropriate or offensive
in these stories, I apologise in advance.
If you want to know more about the
struggles of trans persons amidst the dominantly binary gendered outlook of our
society, I have added a few links at the end of the story. Those resources will
help you to gain more understanding and sensitivity towards someone who is
subjected to these hardships on a regular basis.
-×-
1. Night Terrors
I
thought transgender people are much worse than I am. That's why they are
willing to risk everything to be who they are. But the older I got, the harder
it got to stay in my body.
-
Chaz Bono
-×-
(February 2011)
"See
my baby is so tired due to roaming around all day, he slept as soon as we got
into the car. I told you seeing entire film city in one day is too much for
him"
"Ohh...will
you calm down? He is just tired. He will be OK tomorrow morning. If he hadn't
spent so much time enjoying Garba in that temple, we would have finished
early."
He
could hear his parents whisper as he was lazily lying on the back seat.
He
was tired, for sure, but he was too happy to sleep. Today he felt like his
favorite character Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Everything in this new city
was colorful, magical and colossal. He was lost in his thoughts when the car
suddenly stopped. He thought maybe his dad stopped at the red light. He got up
rubbing his eyes. They were stopped on a deserted road at night with no one
around. There was no red light. They had stopped there because his parents were
arguing about something. By now, he knew not to disturb his parents when they
were arguing. But it was dark outside and he was terrified now. To add to his
panic, he saw a hijra approaching
their car. Being brought up in Hyderabad, he was very much familiar with these ‘men
dressed in a saree’. He had heard a lot of stories of how they misbehave with
boys. His parents always told him to stay away from them. He was panicking now.
He
tried to tell his parents to start the car. But they were busy arguing. They
didn't hear him.
As
the hijra person approached the car,
he realized he didn't check whether doors and windows of the car were locked.
His parents always told him to do so they can be safe inside the car and ignore
hijras.
He
realized both door and window on his side were not locked. He locked the door
but before he could close the window, he felt a hand on his cheek. He was
terrified to look up. He slowly gazed up. He saw that the hijra was leaning inside the window to caress him. It took him
loads of courage to look at the face of this hijra. The hijra person was
smiling. A silver tooth at the left corner of her mouth was glistening as she
smiled. She had a big red bindi on her forehead and her eyes...her eyes were
different. All her features were almost inducing the fear in him that he was expecting
to feel, but not her eyes. They were dark and hardly visible. But he could still
see that they were softened. Hijra
person looked like she was in awe of the boy.
By
now his parents were aware of this hijra
and they were threatening her to leave their boy alone while telling him not to
be scared. But he was not scared…for the first time...
His
mother shouted- "aye, leave my baby alone…"
"Saraswathi",
hijra person said while still looking at the
boy.
"
what?"
"My
name…Saraswathi"
"We
don't have anything to do with that"
Saraswathi
gave a stern glance to the boy's mother. She mellowed down a bit. Saraswathi
again turned towards the boy.
Gently
flicking his hair, admiringly caressing his cheek, Saraswathi said, "don't
keep him away from us. Look at him. You know his habits. You know his choices.
You know who he is. Then why are you doing this?"
His
parents immediately retracted. They seemed tensed. He was confused. He
didn't know what Saraswathi was talking about.
By
now, he was drawn towards those caresses. No one had ever shown such fondness
towards him. Now when he was looking at his parents he realized that they never
did this. Never showed their love like this. Why do they look like they are hiding something? What are they hiding?
His reverie was broken as the door unlocked.
Saraswathi
unlocked the door through the window and said, "why haven't you told him
yet…why haven't you told him that he is one of us?"
He
froze.
"What?
What is he saying? I am not one of them. I am like you, dad. What is happening?
", he was shouting.
Saraswathi
grabbed him and took him into her arms.
"Where
are you taking me? Let me go. Mom, Dad stop him", he kept shouting.
"Shhhhh",
Saraswathi tried pacifying him, "don't worry. I am helping you. You will be
happy with us. Now onwards we are your parents. Leave these people. They
will never let you be happy."
"Nooooo...Mom...Save
me...I don't want to go", he was crying badly now.
But
his parents didn't move. Not even a bit. As Saraswathi took him away, they just
faded.
He
woke up with a jerk. What happened? Where am I? He was sweating. It was a dream…That
night from 15 years ago still haunts him. Well, not really that night. Nothing
happened that night. Tired and lost in his thoughts, he had slept in the backseat
of the car. But these 15 years…they haunt him...his own body haunts him...his
own gender haunts him...
Every
time he sees this dream, he sees himself more vulnerable. He looks at his
parents more accusingly. Sometimes, in the scariest of his dreams, he sees the
dream as Saraswathi...
-
Iravati Kamat
-×-
Growing up in a conservative family,
this wasn’t something we talked about at the dinner table. There has always
been a strong prejudice and a stigma about hijras. There seemed to be a negative connotation to the word
‘hijra’. I grew up knowing that hijras were
social outcasts.
I, like almost everyone else in my
society, grew up seeing them as less than human. Their habits, way of life, and
even looks marked them as different and deviant, as if a living testimony of
biological aberration. Then I met Heena, who showed me how wrong I was. She
opened her life to me, made me a part of her world and helped me to see
something beyond the word hijra.
-
Shahria Sharmin
[Reference
given below]
[Macdonald, F. (2017, July 20). The
semi-sacred 'third gender' of South Asia. Retrieved from www.bbc.com:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170720-the-semi-sacred-third-gender-of-south-asia]
Resources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRKiCpcJ-ag
https://www.shethepeople.tv/home-top-video/10-transgender-people-breaking-barriers/
https://view.publitas.com/none-122/the-gay-bcs-of-lgbt/
https://transequality.org/issues
https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/
https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/41-transgender-friendly-books-for-young-kids
