Intense sharing

He is a friend whom I have know from my teens. I have shared my tragedies and most happy moments with him. When I was in serious pain, he stood by me and through his comic sharing has relived me of my horrible moments. He has undergone maximum pain in life and still has the power to change it into a comic phase and at the same time can be emotional. And because of this talent of him I decided to interview him. He came and looked calm as usual. I thought he would make die of laughing while the interview is going on. My idea was to do away with victim narrative. He came and made me cry and also cried in the interview. It was definitely not a victim narrative. It was most intensive sharing of his personal life which is filled with pain and pain and pain. This side of him shocked me and brought the reality in front of me about people who sacrifice their lives in the LGBTI communities for their partners. Here one of my close friends to you all, sharing very intense moments of his life.

Madhu - a total surprise

This friend of us really stunned us with appearance, understanding of gender and sexuality and sweet friendship. A senior community, this person changed all the moments of struggle into situations where it would be converted into a surprising situation for people around. So the immediate response is more of an expression of coming to terms with this surprise thrown than severe violence. Here is a small excerpt of our friend who is explaining about gender identity.

 

Happiness is more about ...........

Seethal my dear friend from Kerala - in 2005 I met with an accident and among very close friends who looked after me day and night, it was Seethal who was very sensitive about both our genders and nursed me back to life with other friends. This is not the only friendship we share. We have been together in many political struggles and work. In Kerala the existence of  male born sexual and gender minorities is very difficult and so many trans people who want surgery cannot find the Hijra community in Kerala. The historical existence of Hijras is not present in Kerala as in other states like Tamil Nadu. Seethal is one of the trans person who has seen through this struggle of no space for expression in Kerala and has also received intense ridicule and violence for it.

"I love Gangamma" says Ramya

Instantly we all fell in love with her, Ramya also called as Dayamma. She is called Dayamma because she nurses Hijras who undergo castration and looks after them till they are fit and fine whether they are her chelas or not. Smile never fades away from her face. She narrates intense pain like as though it is a joke. Her slang in Tamil is really something that we found very difficult to translate. 

She was chosen to act in the play Molagapodi directed Srijith Sundaram of Kattiyakkari group. The character she was to play is a feudal land lord woman who is always angry and violent towards working class. Now our dearest Ramya is exactly opposite. She just cannot get angry nor mimic anger. She bursts into smiles the moment she is supposed to get angry. Even otherwise in life she is not a person who can get angry. So she struggled hard and one day cried in the rehearsals that she cannot do the role. All her co-actors pepped her up and gave her courage to do the role. She finally learned to get angry and play the role and then she says "I love Gangamma". Here is Dayamma for you all about her childhood.    

Maraladi - a god's sanction

Maralu is a kind of possession through god and you become god's wife. And in this process a male person with different or women's gender orientation can transition to being woman with or without surgery.

Mayamma another friend who is Maraladi gave us the interview and talked about the struggle of convincing the family and society about her being a Maraladi. She also has the powers to cure many diseases and ailments through her worship and her dedication to the god of Maralu. 

"I am Sowmiya The Great"

I met Sowmiya in Chennai when I went to watch the play "Aanmayo Aanmay" directed by Mangai. The play was yet to begin in Spaces, a wonderful threatre in Besant Nagar. We were just hanging around meeting many friends. Somwiya was also around and I met her. She spoke and I too spoke. 

 
I went to Chennai again to do the video interviews and Srijith our friend and a theatre director of the group Kattiyakkari reintroduced Sowmiya to us. And this is "Sowmiya the great". She is my age. Initially she said that she has training in beauty parlor work. Later we came to know that she is an actor too and has acted in some plays.   

Talking about her work as a beautician she said that because she is a transgender person many people refuse to avail her services and so it is difficult for her to work in a mainstream beauty parlor. She then started going to people's houses to give beautician services. Mangai and friends like Mangai call her home to get services. But that is not enough for her livelihood. She has the strength to keep trying and trying to establish herself as a beautician.  After she acted in a play called "Molagapodi" of the Kattiyakkari group, which got staged in many places, people started recognizing her and came to know that she is a beautician. And now many people call her for beautician work. I wish her all the best in her acting and in her career.

Naan Oru Chindu ......Sankari

Naan Oru Chindu (a Tamil film song).... she sang this for us and said that it relates to her life......Every time we would go to Tamil Nadu for work, mostly crisis intervention of lesbian, bisexual women and female to male trans people (LBT), she is there ready to work with us. She is always pleasant and also relieving us of our tensions. She always says that LBT community is not like our Aravani community. There is no support for them and so she is always ready to help in any worst crisis situation.   The work that she has done for us cannot be called as help, it is this bond of friendship and extension of the feeling of belonging that we share.

Sankari is also a theatre activist and has been part of many plays. She is now working in Nirangal an organization working for peoples' rights. Here is another wonderful friend that you all can know about.

Questioning Gender

Taejha, our dear friend and an artist who is exploring Dance as an art beyond genders. There are very few people and very few artists who bring in the politics of body, genders and sexuality in art forms. Only a few artists like Taejha are able to critique the patriarchal systems and gender restrictions on both sides (how women should dance and how men should dance) in arts like dance.

Taejha in 2011 Bangalore pride performed at the Mela and immediately my many friends and I just flocked around Taejha after performance. Taejha's body and dance movements just broke many gender rules that we could generally see in traditional art forms like Bharathanatyam and Mohini Attam. Taejha presented a piece in Mohini Attam (predominantly a woman's perfomance) and that body of Taejha expressed so many shades of genders.

When I planned my trip to Tamil Nadu for video interviews I was very doubtful if I could get Taejha's interview.  In moment of total confusion of schedule of interviews Taejha agreed for the interview and it was wonderful to spend time with Taejha. I sincerely wish Taejha continues this very interesting and questioning gender in dance.

Dance Is Their Life

These friends, Ponni and Anjali from the Aravani community in Chennai, against all odds struggled to learn Bharathanatyam and become teachers. They have established a dance school in a working class area where they are respected as dance teachers. It is now 2nd year. Initially they had only community students. Now they have people from the area, children and many others. They have 30 students and they are earning their livelihood from the school. They also perform outside and act in plays.

 The area where they teach is not an area which belongs to affluent class. It is a Dalith colony. It is a working class area where people are cobblers, vegetable vendors, people who make breakfast and take it to rich areas and sell, and so on. It is these people's children who come to learn Bharathanatyam from Ponni and Anjali. They identify themselves as women and their students also do not question them nor the area people. It is simply amazing that how Ponni and Anjali have broken the caste restriction around the traditional dance making it easily accessible to all and train students to become performers.

SMILEY

I saw her in a play directed by Mangai in Tamil Nadu. The play was called 'Anmayo Anmay' (Macho-O-Macho). She was doing this play along with other common friends like Ponni Arasu. We all from LesBiT went to watch this play in Chennai. The play was staged in Bangalore and she came and stayed with me and Sumathi in our house. It was wonderful time we spent. Then told her about the oral history documentation work on LGBTI people that we were doing and she immediately agreed to give us an interview and insisted that we stay in her house. We too agreed.

Smiley..... full of smiles and also most intense complex person who has struggled hard in life to be what she has wanted to be - an actor, writer, theatre director, one who has worked in films, activist and so many other things. Smiley lives in Chennai and is the first one in the community to have written an autobiography about the experience of transition of male to female.

Personally she is one who keeps talking laughing and entertaining and very friendly. In her house where she lives it is like a house of an activist and an artist, There is beautiful painting pasted to the mirror of her cupboard. Many photos of Bob Marley all around. She is one of the few people who initiated herself into the Aravani community and after living the life willfully came out to explore the life independently on her own doing theatre.

She before initiating into the Aravani community was had finished post graduation and after the initiation for it was her desire, followed all the customs of Aravani community even though she was very well educated. She comes from a working class and Dalith caste, who struggled hard to educate herself and also worked in a Bank. Even when we said we wanted to do her video interview and looking for a location, she preferred 'Spaces' - a theatre space where she has acted many times and said that, that place brings out her most intimate being of herself. This theatre space is in front of the Besant Nagar beach. 
  

Strongest Support - Sowmya

There was a time in Bangalore when an entire area, a suburban area of Bangalore was the most secured place  to reside for most of the Female to male transpeople and their woman identified partners who had migrated from all over south India. That is because most of the Hijra and Kothi community lived in that area. Sowmya lived in that area like a queen who could take care of every community resident of that area. She being a Male to Female transperson (a Hijra) would be the first person to attend to any crisis of community people. Every festival was like a party in her house where she would host all the community people including us. She would flirt with us and at the same time gave us all the care that even our family people could not give. Dashing, daring, sexy Sowmya is a close friend of mine and is a very outspoken person. She is a very articulate public speaker. In the recent public meeting with politicians of Karnataka to remove the Karnataka Police Act 36 (A), she was vibrant and lashing out the Karnataka ruling party for having introduced this law. It was proposed to the Government last year to introduce this law while the Karnataka govt also spoke about trans reservation and giving jobs to trans people in High Court of Karnataka. There was protest last year in July to not to introduce this law but the govt ignored it. This is a law that is drawn from the Hyderabad Eunuch's Act, which is extremely horrible and unconstitutional. Now sexual and gender minorities of Karnataka are organizing themselves strongly to protest against this law and urging to remove it. Sowmya is a leading and a strong trans activist who is in the forefront of this struggle.  

 

 

Lolakula Savvadi - sounds of the ear rings

http://soundcloud.com/bihag/love-song-from-durga?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=google_plus&utm_content=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fbihag%2Flove-song-from-durga

 My wait is for you
To rest my head on your lap
The moments when I am in your embrace
To hear the sounds of our ear rings

Nee Raakakai Naa Nirikshanam
Nee Vadilo Nidurinchalani
Nee Kaugililo Chere Samayam
Mana Lolakula Savvadi Vinalani

Poem - Durga Devi
Music - Sumathi

Mummy who has stood with us for years - A.Revathi

The most interesting interview till now, was the most enjoyable interview shoot with Revathi (Hijra and she is mummy for all of us). Revathi mummy is dear to activists and us community for many reasons. She is an activist who has struggled hard in her life beyond imagination, she is a person with lot of love and compassion for not just Hijra community but also a lot of us who are female born gender and sexual minorities, she is a person who has broken many rules of Hijra community which is violent and exploitative. I had the privilege of working with her in Sangama when she was the Director of Sangama. She rose from the post of office assistant to being director. She was the only community person from working class to struggle to get this position. Mummy right now is doing a research on female to male trans people’s life and struggles. Revathi mummy has written two books in Tamil which is translated to Kannada and English also. Her book is published by Penguin publishers. She with great effort had reclaimed her property in Namakkal (Tamil Nadu) but in the recent times her brother and father after the death of her mother are torturing her to give back the minimal property that she has gotten. She is fighting back for it. She is in a crucial stage where she does not expect much and ascribe to the living patterns of Hijra community and she is struggling to live independently as an activist who is not working in any NGOs or CBOs in big position and having an ambition to be a writer and an actor. 

Where Do I Belong To???

I think personally everyone of us are into this endless search of "where do I belong to". When Vit (my friend whose name i cannot give so I am calling her Vit), shared this all three of us Sumathi who is helping me, Neethu our camera person and me felt we just visited our lives back. What struck us was the run from the village to the city and losing hair for the sake of the honor. While many of us female born people carry our honor in our vaginas, male born people actually carry it all around, especially hair length.

Hair length disturbs me terribly when it is of male born people. Kumari our dearest friend and close friend of Vit was murdered due to hair length. She spoke to me a day before her murder on 8th November 2010. She said she is unable to take the violence by her family and so she wanted to shift with me into my house. I was extremely happy that Kumari was coming into our house and our lives and so there will be an anchor for our lives, me and Sumathi. Suddenly in the night she called and said she would come on 8th morning, though I was arguing that she had to come the same night for if the family is violent anything could happen. And so it happened. She was killed. It could not even become a case of murder as it was portrayed as a suicide.This death affected many of us for the sense of understanding honor and sense of belonging.

Moments Lost Moments Gained

Continuing to present my work on this blog, I am introducing a friend, a person who felt peer pressure to identify himself initially as female to male person and later started defining himself as a 'trans person', one who has shifted from the established constructs of gender. He has excellent power to convert a tense situation into a comic relief. He has come up with powerful scripts for plays and writes poems in Tamil. I have tried my level best to translate two of his poems here and present to you. He is also a very good actor. He is also a dedicated activist working for the rights of Lesbian, Bisexual women and female to male trans persons specifically and other sexual and gender minorities.    

Dream Times

When my girl comes to me, my youth gains spring

In the prison of love, we exchange our hearts in the season of youth

Each word that drops out of my lover’s lips turns to be golden times

Years and years passed by,

When it passed by and I looked back

My girl, far away, further away looked like dark dot  

Memories that refuse to fade away

Still cannot forget her blooming face,

Still cannot forget her beautiful smile,

Still cannot forget her innocence,

Still cannot forget her love,

Still cannot forget the happiness we shared,

Still cannot forget those Oodal (Coy  anger),

Still cannot forget those Konjal (Coyness)

Still cannot forget those Kenjal (Pleading)

Still cannot forget her tears

Still cannot forget the pain of betrayal

All that she gave me, she forced me to experience,

Those moments that I lost,

Comes back to me as a memory of fretful moments. 

I personally share a strong bond with him and I have known his struggle ever since we met. I wish lots of luck, peace, and best of life for him.  

CHANDS!!!

In the first month's work, I have mostly found activists, as people who were ready to give me interview and document their lives. One such trans woman is Chandini and this is an excerpt from her interview. Chandini, an activist and poet, has been a good friend of mine for almost 8 years. Below this I have given some translations of her poems. I have tried my level best to translate it.

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Bringing the tale of past to future

Opening up the tale of future

If you knock the hearts

Will the true tale come out?

People are there who do not know truth

Do not know if they want to know the truth

When lies swallow the truth

Are deliberations needed?

Only rain can unearth the truth

That is buried under the earth

2.

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Being with you I abandon heaven

Even if it is black and dark

Want to kiss you

From the tip of fingers to the strands of your hair

Lightening in your eyes

A plot to entice me in your lips

I understand

Your inner scheme

If distance gives me this pleasure

I can never leave you from my nearness Oh! Sakha

3.

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Cannot sleep after seeing you

Have stolen your heart

It blooms when I bite your cheeks

Soft body of yours

When I embrace

The sweet kiss

Makes this day unforgettable

When your hands stroke my hair

My heart is intoxicated

4.

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Here they come here they come

Thirsty manipulators

Crossing beyond their own suffering

Crossing their lives’ paths

Sowing the seed of trust

Showering the rain of happiness

Catering food of love  

Floating in the heights of orgasm

Winning the death

In the line of challenges

Establishing fights against the society

With lies all around

Make us reach the heaven

When we trust the truth

They push deep down the sea

New Work New life

This year, at the juncture when I was thinking what will be my future after the ALF (Alternative Law Forum) research work, a friend suggested the OPEN SPACE Fellowship for Civil Society and Youth Outreach by CCDS (Center for Communication and Development Studies, PUNE). I applied for the fellowship. While working on the fellowship given by ALF, I was feeling the need for creating our own histories, our trans stories and our own experiences to be documented by ourselves. This I felt especially when I was writing and rewriting the chapter on Female to Male trans people; how we get invisiblized  because we do not have a legitimate history or mythological back up, how our histories are written by people who may or may not empathize with us and if we are written, how we are made exotic. It was a close friend who recently asked me if she could document my life in a day from morning 6 to next morning 6. I felt weird as to why I was asked like this. I felt I am not different from anyone in this country. I too wake up at my own time, brush my teeth, go for shower (this is slightly doubtful though), do my work, watch TV, play cricket, talk to my girlfriend, talk to my friends, have lunch, dinner, snacks, etc.

This put me to think through as to what would I document if I have to document lives of marginalized genders and sexualities being one of them. This led to serious discussions with many friends who also suggested that how most of the stories documented exposes the depressed facts, not the negotiations, not the humor that is used to come out of severe painful situations, not the assertions, not the triumphs, or even simple escaping from the situations in a clever manner. And so I put up my proposal to CCDS for the OPEN SPACE fellowship based on this thought. Thanks to all my friends who have helped me write this proposal in a manner that I wanted to express. I did get the fellowship and this is the first month's work, that I am posting in this blog. This is one of the 5 videos that I have worked on.

My sincere thanks to CCDS for having selected me to this fellowship and given me a chance to do my dream work which I will keep sharing with you all. 

Please do give me your feed back.

Greetings From Sunil