a fellow's being

a fellow's being | pride

This is just a small version of how transgenders are actually treated in a society like ours. The character is imaginary, yet the events happening with/to the character are a meek/tame attempt to show the reality that's too bitter to be shown.

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WHEN I WAS BROUGHT IN THE WORLD, my mother cried while holding me; not because she had given birth to a child, but to the one who identified as nothing.

I didn't spend many days with her; heck, I spent mere seconds before I was hauled to somewhere I learnt to call home, where I was sheltered and fed, and where people called themselves to be like I.

But I still had to figure out who I was.

When I got sensible enough, the people pushed me out on the streets, where I had to give wishes and beg for money. I learnt to dress as a female, while possessing the voice and body of a boy.

But I was none of them.

I learnt to stop wishing, stop dreaming of being reuniting with my family, stop desiring of holding my own bag and books as I watched children walking in colourful uniforms with their fingers in their fathers' hands, bright, kaleidoscopic smiles shining through their eyes.

I learnt to be the cynosure of eyes and stares and fingers, and while I should have basked in the attention, I only felt humiliation as they laughed and instead of calling out their children, they encouraged them as they called me names.

And finally, finally I learnt who I was.

A khawaja sira*, or, in more degrading terms: a khusra*.

It became common to hear these terms as I walked the bazaars and streets in the traditional shalwar qameez and a dupatta high on my head. My feet padding on the floor as I walked with an undulant motion, swaying my body to the rhythm in my head.

I learnt not to feel ashamed as they stared at me up and down, their indelible stares full of disgust and hatred for me burning me from inside.

But oh, did I learn to ignore them. It seemed like half a part of my life consisted of learning, and the other half, of putting what I learnt to use, to ignore when someone pointed me out of a crowd of thousand, to ignore when I was made fun of, to ignore when a part of my heart got broken into pieces everyday.

It seemed that when a part of me was learning to ignore the hatred inflicted upon me, another me was learning to dance upon tessellated floors; a me was learning to sing songs of joy at someone's house whose child had just been born; a me was dancing at someone's wedding; a me was learning to be used for men's personal pleasure; a me was getting raped in an alleyway; a me was learning to hide the incipient fear and tears of pain in his eyes; a me was killed by his father in the name of honour.

And finally, on a broken stretcher in a hospital, a me had been learning to fight life and death for over six hours because she had been shot six times , but in the end bled to death. For the females in the female ward of the hospital didn't allow her to be treated in it. Just because she was me: a khawaja sira; a khusra.

In the end, it all came down to this: who you were identified as. All the privileges, advantages, rights; everything was divided on the bases of gender, and not on how you were as a human. In the end, everything had been limited to the two genders: male and female, and the people claiming for only these two to exist were lurking around every dark corner, in every street, along the roads, and taking over everything.

Yet through all these years, I was aware of the unavoidable truth that humans, though however small and however insignificant they may be forced to feel about themselves, there was one thing; a single feeling of wholeness and entirety that prevented them, at most times, from giving in and surrendering to what may be known as the force arising from their weakness: pride.

It's true, and I myself have experienced it first-handed. Whether it'd be feeling that emotion myself or being subjected to be made feel it through another persons. I was aware, through all these years, that pride does wonders to not only humans but animals too: the way a lion sticks its head high in the air while prowling through jungle could not be less similar to the way people stuck up their heads, noses high in the air as I walked past them. It's unavoidable that the way I was compelled to feel about myself all these years was just another reaction of humans to their pride, to the feeling of being superior than me.

But I often asked myself: What exactly is pride? Is it being contemptuous of others because you're all high and mighty? Is it treating others like trash because they are not on same social status as you? Or is it being part of the patriarchal customs and traditions?

And when I failed to answer my own questions, I was forced to dwell upon my being and these very questions. I, for one, think that a person's status or race or gender or the power he holds should not be the driver of how he behaves with others. Because then it'd give an entirely different meaning to the pride I felt upon being me: a disaster, a socially unacceptable spectacle that needed to be stared at and made fun of wherever I went, a khwaja sira, a khusra.

But for me pride wasn't the feeling of haughtiness that certain air-filled heads needed to be deflated, developed. Pride wasn't making others feel worthless. Pride wasn't about hating failures wronging your name.

And then comes the question: What really pride meant to me? What was the true meaning of pride for a socially unacceptable disaster like myself who had learnt to fear humans and what they would really do to him? The answer was clear.

Pride, for me, was about love, security and wholeness. Pride was about kindness, truth and generosity. Pride was about being true to oneself. Pride was about cherishing the moments I was given. Pride was about being alive. Pride was about accepting who I was, that whatever I was ought to feel, I wasn't any less than any other being.

And that's when I knew: my pride had nothing to do with humans as I felt proud while knowing myself and accepting myself with all my flaws and imperfections that separated me from these humans. It was something these people calling themselves utterly perfect wouldn't understand.

Because for me pride meant knowing that I was different, accepting that there was nothing wrong with me, knowing that million others like me existed, and wishing for them to chant with all their might what I believed in firmly myself.

I am different. And I am proud.

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*Khwaja sira and Khusra are two most common terms used to address transgenders in our society. While khwaja sira is a general term, khusra is more of a degrading or humiliating term.