Mumbaichya Transqueens!

On Friday, I had the privilege of being one of the jury members for a national level beauty contest for transwomen. One of India’s most celebrated transpersons, Abheena Aher, who has dedicated over a decade of her life to the welfare of the LGBT+ community, was on the jury with me too.

There were contestants from Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, and Gujarat who joined the competition along with aamchi Mumbaichya trans-porgis. This was a beauty contest with a difference, it tested the contestants on their commitment to the cause, their knowledge on the issue, and their ability to take on leadership positions in the trans movement.

The people who gathered were both transpeople and from the hijra clan. I played the perfect antagonist and asked every contestant questions that could be termed offensive but each of them answered with absolute confidence. When I delved into their personal lives, I discovered that all of them were survivors in their own right. Despite surviving brutal violence, they emerged from it. It goes to explain why some of them are so rough in their general conversations. Their life is their fight, their fight is their life. Remarkable would be an understatement.

They don’t speak ‘Tharoor-ian’ English, they don’t dance to western music, they weren’t the most polished in their talk but they were who they were. They wore their attitude on their sleeves and their hearts on their palms. They didn’t have the best ramp walk, body, diction, or confidence but who are we comparing them with, to adjudge whether they are the best or not? Do these transpersons have the same opportunities like a Priyanka Chopra?

The high-pitched (literally) audition ended at 4 pm. One of the transpersons invited me to her place for some chai-biscuit and I readily agreed. She lives in a small house, in the heart of Mumbai in Andheri. She dances in a bar and her neighbours know her story. They know that she isn’t a woman, but a transwoman and none of them despise her. She supports her entire family, the bread winner of sorts. Her friends walk into her home as if it was their own. It took me just five minutes to feel that I could be more comfortable here than in my 13-storied uber cool, pristine snob-nest in Navi Mumbai.

Of course, in life, we need money, but more than that, we need friends and family with whom we can be ourselves without being judged. While housing for transpersons still remains an issue in many areas of Mumbai, this was an alternate reality I was exposed to. The people in this city, and the city in general, does have a heart. Aani aggdi wonderful heart!

(Activist Harish Iyer shares his entertaining adventures through Mumbai’s landscape)

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