The Hijda Soul born in Captivity
Originally uploaded by flickr photographerno1The Hijdas in Mumbai are quintessential part of the citys ethos and its existence,
the Mumbai Hijda who claps his hands, moves about in groups, lips made up, a mangal sutra round his neck that shows he like any other woman loves to boast of his matrimony..yes whether married to man or a toy boy the Hijda is married to pain, the duplicity of his gender, the dichotomy of an in between, neither this nor that.
A speck caught in between two lines..
The Hijda has a history , ethnicity unlike the transgenders in the West..earlier the Hijda was castrated a painful journey into becoming a part woman without any menstrual machinations, but now she has come of Age..
The Hijdas are changing rapidly , becoming aware of their battered human rights, their racist plight, they are treated like vermin , a stigma , a taboo..
The Hijda in the old days danced when a new baby arrived, and they knew this even before the relatives did, they danced took baksheesh known as Badhai..
They are considered as good omen for births and marriages , every new born baby house has a mark with Pushpa or Baby or Sona written on the door signifying that the Hijda has taken the birth money from this particular house.
The Hijdas were derogatorily called Chakkas , sixers , and children would abuse them , cat calls etc , the Hijda in anger would lift her petticoat and expose her genitalia this was bad omen or curse of the Hijda.. old mothers tales..
The modern Hijda is net savvy, the metro sexual hijda, the highest paid are the Mujra performers who dance at private parties , and bring the days of yore, the days of the Tawaif , or Umrao Jaan..
The Hijdas are born with dancing legs , some are so beautiful that women die of envy..visit my Hijda gallery at my homesite and you will see that I am not bull shitting..
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The Hijda net work is swifter than the cybernet, they know when a mother gives birth to a hermophrodite , or a eunuch, immediately they take claim of the child, as the poor mother of the gender defective child in rural India considers this birth a taboo..
I have shot child eunuchs , like Mona , who incidentally was bought up by rich affluent Hijda mother and a normal father..She lacks nothing , her sister about 5 years is a eunuch too..
They guard her , they the Hijda community is very protective to the young Hijda siblings..The Hijda carries pain in a mud vessel, a vessel where the pottter dozed off , and thus came forth the travesty of Poetic injustice .. the Hijda was born..
I write about this Hijda soul..if I am not writing about racism in poetry..
A woman’s soul languishing
Enchained manacled maimed
Imprisoned
In a male body
Pain burnt into her flesh
Entombed ironically
Engendered pain borne
With rectitude
Enwombed
Testicular tragedy
She who dresses
her despair in the folds
of her red saree
She who hides her blemishes
Within the thorny branches
Of her subtle masculinity
She who begs at traffic signals
Lights of flickering depravity
No escape no immunity
Sabotaged excommunicated
A taboo a stigma a human
Caught in transgendered duplicity
She also sells her feminine
Fleshed out wares
to anybody
the macho men, hooligans
in khaki who take it free
she who begs on Indian trains
from one compartment
to another bordered walls
of a eunuch city
A man a woman a hijda
Gaudiness disembodied
A wasted seed that
Withers before becoming
A flowering plant
A hijda embodiment
Of a soul born in captivity
Dies standing in her grave
Her feet bound to the soil
Of her earthly paternity
Bhaichura Ma the Hijda Goddess
Her cosmic consciousness
Her Karmic Dharmic eternity
