Chhakka means six. The number six is associated with the hijra community. Probably because the inverse of six is another number — nine. And 69 symbolically denotes yin and yang.

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Members of the hijra community are seen as people who endorse the two populous genders — male and female. As a child when I didn’t have my lunch on time, my grandmom would scare me — “eat jaldi nahi toh chhakka le jaayega”. Even before I knew of the word hijra, I was taught the offensive word chhakka. And I was taught that they are cradle snatchers and abnormal people. Love is innate, fear is taught. My late grandmother taught me fear.

At 18 years of age, when my father learnt that I was sexually abused for many years, he asked me, “Are you a chhakka? Why couldn’t you fight back?” I learnt again, that hijra persons are weak. And that chhakka is a bad word. At 24, after a moment of self-discovery when I came out as gay, I pledged I would never visit The Humsafar Trust as it had a lot of transpersons visiting the drop-in centre, and I didn’t want to be seen in the company of “those” people. I didn’t identify as “those” people. Moreover, though my family was financially struggling to meet ends in those days, I could still boast to be class-wise superior to “those” people.

What a fool I was. I was a transphobe. A 100 per cent transphobe. And I didn’t even know it. I was taught that hijras are not a part of our Iyer culture and that we are superior to them. What kind of culture is it when you are taught by the elders to hate the ones who are different and where transphobia is transmitted through genes?

This cycle needs to stop. I am happy that if I ever have kids, they will grow up to stories of Malvani resident Gauri Sawant.

This week, Gauri Sawant is busy making headlines for all the right reasons. Recently, the brand Vicks presented a short film featuring Gauri that went viral within a few hours. It was a film about a young girl who loses her mother at an early age. She is fostered by a transgender played by Gauri, who ensures that the orphaned child finds quality education away from home. She didn’t want the girl to experience even the shadow of social ostracisation that hijras face on a daily basis. The film ends with the girl, Gayatri, saying: “Mom wants me to become a doctor, but I want to be a lawyer so that I can fight for mom’s rights.”

The clincher is, this is Gauri’s real life story. She plays herself in the short film. She adopted a child who was orphaned and gave the child her name as the middle name. I don’t want to add a new stereotype and say that all transpersons are like Gauri. They are all diverse, just like individuals from any other gender. But if hypothetically speaking, all hijras are like Gauri, and if there is a next birth, I would like to be born a hijra or at least be raised by one.

I’d also proudly say, “Meri maa hijra.”

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