I was in my 8th grade and me with a few friends from school were excited for our school trip. The day had finally arrived and we were happy and enjoying our selves a lot. This was the age when we have an urge to experiment with everything and at the same time want to explore the unknown, well, I was surprisingly not from the lot who would go out and try the things life had to offer, rather I was more on the observant side, I liked to observe the psyche of the people. And this trip was the perfect way to do so, so I was all set to explore.
On our way we stopped at a place which was a small place for the drivers to eat and halt for sometime. I along with my friends got down , as just the aroma of the food around made us hungry. We got down and were waiting for the food to come and passing time. In the midst of all the singing and the enjoyment, there came a eunuch("hijra" in hindi). As I saw her approaching, for a second, I panicked. Our eyes met and suddenly I started praying for her not to come and sit next to me. The next moment I saw was that she was sitting right next to me on the bench. My prayers were not enough I guess.
She was silent and paid no heed to the reactions. The guys around started to bully her and tease her, calling names and laughing at her. I was still in a state of total panic. My completely conditioned mind didn't at all want her to sit besides me, but in vain.
I was scared and petrified by the fact that she would either ask for money or rob me, but I didn't quite like the guys making fun of her either. Yet my completely conditioned mind made me grab my bag lying besides me and I kept it in my laps and held it tightly. She noticed it and gave me a smile, a gesture that it was all okay to keep my bag down and that she wasn't looking for some money from me. That was the moment I felt really selfish of myself at the same time lame enough to do anything at all, yet I felt like there was a deep connection between the both of us again, and, for a moment I kept looking at her spellbound.
In the meantime, my class teacher who was a nun, Sister Monti Gonsalves, approached her and started to converse with her. For a moment I was relieved as it felt like, she was an angel who came to my rescue, but the next moment, I saw that she (the eunuch) had completely been broken into pieces. She was hurt. It felt as if there was a scar which was deep trodden and her pain seemed to have no end.
With a gulp in her throat and tears streaming down her face, she took out some gold from her blouse and began explaining the reasons for this plight of hers. She said that she was just about to enter her adolescence when her parents got to know that unlike her other siblings , she wasn't normal. She was forced to leave her home and also the village. Her parents abandoned her.
While she was forced to leave the village, her parents laid her with the responsibility of getting all her sisters married. She had 8 sisters and she was the one to take care of all of them financially. It felt like, she was being punished for being born as a eunuch. But she was fine with the fact that she was at least of that much help to her family, and she explained the significance of the gold she was carrying with her.
She explained that it was her sister's wedding and she was going to her village after half a decade as her sister was getting married, and she was the one who was responsible for her sister's well being. With tear filled eyes she continued, that when she reaches her village, a small place near mangalore, she would hand over the gold to her childhood friend from outside the village, as she wasn't allowed to enter her village, nor the wedding because she was a "hijra" !
Still sobbing she said that she wanted to be by her family at this time and see her sister get married. She held sister Monti's hand and cried her heart out. It was then that I was completely shaken by this reality of her life.
I don't know what happened after that to her but I was into tears and it was then that I realized that, how does it feel like when you have nothing to give, yet you give away all you have, for those who mean a lot to you and for those to whom you are as good as dead. She dedicated her whole life in seeing her sisters get the best in the worlds without expecting even once , to be accepted by her family. Its easy to give when you have but what if you don't have a penny for you and still have this big heart and a smile on the face, I guess that does it all, may be that did it all for her too, a heart of gold and a smile on her face.
It was 1998 then and today, after 11 years, I think all her sisters would have gotten married. She definitely would be having a much bigger smile on her face, the one, that would reach till her eyes.
For some she is a hijra,chakka,kinner and for a few she is a eunuch, transgender,sixer,but, for me,a "ROCK STAR". You can never imagine, someone so alien can create such a massive impact on your life, in just a few moments you spend with them. Yes, she did change me for sure. Today, I might not spare a change for a beggar but I would definitely stop by to spare a change for the eunuchs on the traffic signals. We can do a lot by these random acts of kindness not necessarily by helping them monetarily, we can just start by respecting the fact that they exist. Yes, they are not "IT" or a "HE", they are "SHE" ! They like to be addressed as "her" and "she", I think we can start by calling them with that!! :)
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