Indian eunuchs have a cult status. They are beggars and prostitutes. They bring happiness. Or trouble.
Sima dances at the end. "Sima, come on, you dance so well!" - people shout. Someone rolls up the worn carpet, someone turns on the tape recorder: Hindi music comes out, and Sima starts. She moves her hips, her breasts flutter and her long hair flutters. At Tom, one of the visitors, she throws such frank glances of dark eyes that no decent Indian woman would dare.
Tom looks a little embarrassed. Although Sima dyes, dresses and moves like a woman, her arms are covered with hair like a man's, under a thick layer of makeup, bristles are visible, and in a bra - fake breasts. Shema is not a man or a woman, but a hijra.
Scars in souls and bodies
In India, hijras are also called the third sex. There is no exact data on how many such people in this country. According to various estimates, from 500 thousand to 5 million. Hijras are often also called eunuchs, but no one knows how many of them were actually castrated.
Sima was 10 years old - then her name was Pappu - when the boy discovered that he was not like everyone else. He felt drawn to boys and liked to wear women's outfits. Later, he ran away from home to save his family from shame and to be able to live the way he wanted. He found his new home at the Hijras.
“We cannot live as men or as women, and therefore we live as the third sex,” says Sima.
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Someday Sima will take the last step, a step that will finally make her a representative of the third sex. This is castration. At 24, Sima dreams that then the skin will become softer, the hair on the body will decrease, and the appearance will acquire femininity. However, fears remain, and there is not enough money for the operation, which is officially prohibited. And the old methods are dangerous, many have not survived. The traditional ritual is a primitive and brutal sex reassignment operation.
Dai Ma, a hijra who performs such operations, does not remove the penis and scrotum with a scalpel, but chops off the genitals with one blow of a knife. And then the wound should bleed for a long time. Thus, "all masculine" is washed out. In most cases, large, ugly scars remain.
The magic of the eunuchs
“The Hijri in India is one of the last eunuch cults on earth to survive,” says Dorothea Riker, who has conducted research on Hijri culture and co-authored Between the Lines. This is not a purely Indian phenomenon: Hijras can also be found in Islamic states such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. The roots of this phenomenon lie in Islamic and Hindu culture, Hijras can be both Muslims and Hindus. Many sagas from Hindu mythology are associated with the origin of the hijras. One of them tells the story of the young man Avaranan, who was going to be sacrificed the next day. He didn't want to die a virgin. God Krishna took pity on him, turned into the beautiful Mohini and became the wife of Avaranan. The next day, Mohini was widowed.
The Koovagan Temple, 250 km south of Chennai, is attended by Hijras from all over India every spring for the festival every spring and perform a wedding ritual.
Hijras live in the margins of society, but have a cult status. On the one hand, they are despised, mocked, and isolated. On the other hand, they are afraid of them and are credited with magical powers, since they combine male and female energies in themselves, without producing offspring. The Hijras worship the great mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, who gives them the ability to bless or curse.
Childless women ask for their blessings. Their supposedly magical abilities provide them with a tolerable existence. Hijras come - often without an invitation - to weddings, birthdays, christenings, and travel. They sing and dance, demanding for this "badhai" - a kind of reward for blessing. Otherwise, they threaten to impose a curse. “If the curse comes from the very depths of my soul, it will certainly work,” says Shema.
Street bothers
Provocation, including sexual provocation, is the strength of the hijras. Brightly painted and dressed in colorful women's outfits, they walk, swaying their hips, through the streets of Indian cities. Their appearance is always accompanied by a noise, they often behave quite boldly, and sometimes even aggressive.
In Delhi, you can often see them surrounding couples in love and pulling money out of them. Foreigners often find themselves in the hijr network. Hijras simply appear in the apartments of new tenants and demand money. Many of them earn their living by begging and prostitution. Sima also sometimes goes to the parks to earn money. “Different men come to us,” she says. "During the day they avoid us, and at night they twist love with us." Sometimes the police grab her. Then she pays off or exposes her ass.
It is not uncommon for clients of the Hijras to rape or beat them. They have nowhere to wait for help - they will simply be ridiculed. Traditionally, Hijras settle in communities in the homes of so-called gurus.
Sima also has his own guru, his work resembles that of a pimp: "He makes us work very hard." The guru takes the money that the hijras have earned through prostitution or begging.
Out of 100 rupees, Sima gets 10. For the rest, he protects her, provides her with housing, bribes the police and, if necessary, releases her from prison. “We need a guru, it's part of the hijra cult,” she says.
Sometimes Sima manages to escape for a couple of hours. And then she goes to the help center located in the west of New Delhi, where we met her. They talk about AIDS and offer a kind of refuge where the hijras can be themselves. They get together, drink tea, dance and sing. There Sima meets with other Hijras. And with cats. “The Hijras and Kothi form a tight community,” says Seema.
Homosexuality in Indian
In the West, kothis would be called gays or transvestites. But India has different sexual boundaries. Kothi define themselves as the "receiving" part, that is, as a passive sexual partner. Their partners, panthas, are the active sexual side. Mostly kothas are discriminated against because they play women during intercourse.
Panthis do not consider themselves homosexual or bisexual. It is estimated that about 30 percent of all Hindus have sex with both women and men. This creates problems in the fight against AIDS: many people mistakenly believe that AIDS can only be contracted from a woman.
The Kothis are a little jealous of the hijras, because the latter are so open and free. Sima also leaves no doubt about who sets the tone: she often claps her hands when one of the Koths says something impolite. She has her own way of clapping her hands, which is a kind of language: sometimes she scolds in this way, sometimes teases, and sometimes attacks. Such gestures are a cult signal among the Hijras. Most likely, these gestures and sounds should imitate the sounds of naked bodies copulating in an act of love. They are considered obscene to the Hindus, squeezed into the narrow limits of morality.
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Sima has absolutely everyday romantic dreams. One day she wants to get married, or at least have a permanent partner. But in no case does she want to run the household. “I don’t want to live like a second kind,” she says, and there is a sense of disdain in her words. The "second kind" is women. Sima will continue to engage in prostitution. For her, this is also part of freedom.
Christian MELHOFF