The Kinnar

The Kinnar, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

He is a Kinnar another name for the Hijra , I have known him for several years , as he is part of Gopal Hajis Hijra household.We meet year after year here at Motti Katla Ajmer outside the quintessential tea shop, some of my best hijra pictures of hijras have been shot at this hijra watering hole..

Ajmer is one place that drinks are taboo, but charas or hashish is a common feature , the hijras too smoke the chillum abundantly.

Below article from the most resourceful hijra site

hijra.0catch.com/

excerpts

Hijra means "impotent one" in Urdu. In Hindi, hijra may be spelled hijada, hijara, hijda, hijira, or hijrah, and is pronounced somewhere between "heejra" and "heejda". An older, more respectable term for hijra is kinnar. An abusive slang Hindi term for hijra is chakka.
Some hijras were made to be literal eunuchs -- some of them against their will. The process isn't ordinarily a pretty one, usually carried out without the aid of modern anesthesia or antibiotics. Most, however, are transgender of some sort and choose to foreswear their lives as men while retaining their sex organs. A few, however, are intersex and are considered to be "born eunuchs." Hijras are usually considered to constitute a third sex or third gender in that they are neither men nor women. (Not coincidentally, both hijras and two-spirits -- Native American "Indians" who are also of a third gender -- have been said to refer to themselves as "not men, not women.") Hijras don't all look at themselves the same way. Some see themselves -- or are construed by others -- as females, feminine males, transsexuals, or androgynes. There are also female hijra, called hijrin, which are not the same as sadhin.
The term mukhanni may or may not be a synonym for hijra. Another such term is ali. The relatively new (as of 2003) Aravani (aka aravanni, aravani, or aruvani), originated in Tamil Nadu, was popularized in India as a politically correct term to describe members of the third gender, yet it applies more to the devotees of Kutandavar Aravan (India's god of the ali) than those of Bahuchara Mata (the goddess of the hijras). In Urdu and Punjabi, both in Pakistan and India, the term khusra is sometimes used. In Gujarati, they are called Pavaiyaa. Another term is jankha.
The term koti (aka kothi) refers to males who take a "receptive" or feminine role in sex. They are usually not conflated with hijras, although they often dress as women and act in a feminine manner.

An all-around introductory explanation of hijras is stored on this very site, here. If you are reading this and have information which you feel might be helpful to this site, please send an e-mail message to .
This page is linked to the Androgyne Online website because hijras have some things in common with androgynes -- like being of a third gender, for example.

What is the difference between a eunuch and an androgyne? Well, for one, most androgynes have a gender identity of neither a man nor a woman, while eunuchs tend to have a feminine gender identity closer to that of a transsexual than an androgyne. Is there a tendency to conflate androgynes with eunuchs? Perhaps. And yet, not all eunuchs are hijras, and not all hijras identify as transsexuals or androgynes.
Many would argue that it wouldn't be entirely inappropriate to refer to a eunuch as an "it," but even an agendered androgyne would probably object to being called an "it." Androgynes might bend over backwards trying to use terms like sie (pronounced SEE) instead of he and she; and hir (pronounced like "hear") instead of him or her; but surely, they would like to avoid "it." Why is that, I wonder? If one truly is agendered and wants to make an issue of it, why not reclaim the term "it" like some blacks have reclaimed "n*gg*r" and some gays have reclaimed "queer"?
Finally, for those interested, there is a special type of agendered androgyne or eunuch known as neutrois.