Are Hijras Really Men Or Women ?

Are Hijras Really Men Or Women ?, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1.

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Hijra maidens I have shot over the years in retrospection would be called hijras because I tell you they are hijras and because they are part of the hijra community..

But if you take some of the hijras I have shot in isolation they would put the prettiest Bollywood starlet to shame and this is the androgynous nature of the Hijra two spirit theory.. they are neither this nor that yet they are something is a confusing allegory of poetic desire.

Hijras have changed the nature of their souls when they first ventured into no mans land, gradually their bodies their minds their feelings become powerfully feminine..I am not a mind doctor or a anthropologist I am neither as lucky as the white photographers that stay with hijras for months on end and I dont envy them either or women photographers who have a greater comfort level with hijras..


I somehow know the hijra angst as a poet and because the hijras and I are connected to Sufiism.. the mystical world the connection between dargahs and hijras is time immemorial...I have shot the grave of Eunuch Saint and his Biological son close to Taragadh , I had a dream and my Pir made me go there barefeet..what happened there is as strange as strange can be , this was the toughest trek I had taken a path through the mountains instead of the usual one that leads from Taragadh.

There was a Tantric bawa waiting for me , we had never met he was from the forests of Bangladesh and knew everything about me.. he disappeared as soon as I went int the hedges to relieve myself..

And than this year I met the Sada Suhagin Bawas not hijras but who wear women s clothes are married to god and father inumerable children,, this Suhagin Bawa has 9 children from a single woman.

The hijras are totally enigmatic charismatic and they have the power to holistically heal otherwise they would not be blessing your new borns..during Badhai.

I shot Raveena Hijra at Haji Malang she had come from her Friday prayers dressed in white and than hurriedly began changing to get ready for her womans avatar and I started shooting her as she was changing from an Androgyne into a woman.. this was shot for myself as a poetry of a hijras life change.

And once changed she became a woman, so also Preeti or Naina or Monalicious the hijra from Mumbai.

So hijras poetically speaking are women and there is nothing to betray their male origins.

They bitch like women , they back stab , they cheat , they are cunning shrewd over possessive and once spurned they become killers too.

A distant relative in Kanpur met a tragic death after falling in love with a hijra chapter closed...his family mourned for sometime .. and than moved on.. so once I began shooting the hijras they though I had gone mad or insane such is human life the other side of the hijra fence.

And such incidents happen in normal female relationships far more acid throwing bride burning to name a few.

Hijras cant produce children but have inherent motherhood qualities and their kids turn out better citizens is something I can vouch for..

Than at the other end there are eunuch children adopted by the hijras like Jyoti Mona or Nandini.

This is a very long winding subject but I think hijras are women provided you are ready to believe they are women and not men in wolves clothing's..