Patriarchy has killed me

My dad once happened to see one of my friend and asked me whether he is a hijra, i replied with a NO and told him it is his choice to live and express the way he wants. Later on he went on ranting that Hijra's do sex work, its not good for one to roam with them and i on the other hand went on clearing all his misconception but my quinquagenarian dad was adamant on his facts and didn't bother listening to me. I was initially scared and terrified of the Hijra’s but after a while i got along with most of them, and to discover more about them i had to learn how to speak like them. I have been into their daily chores and i know that their life isn't any less than an actor's shift. 4 am - 7 am is their morning begging time. Some people wake up by 10 and start begging on respected stations allotted to them by their Guru's. Some people go for begging in slums and some to the traditional badhaai ceremony from where they earn. Most of them opt for Sex work in the ni...

Exploring feminine self is/was never wrong. My friend once told  me that she just loves to dress like a girl, “ I want to roam on streets and arouse everyone using my feminity but i am scared that people would label me as hijra and more than that i only want to change my dresses not the genitals". I was stunned, she identifies herself as a Cross-dresser now and she is proud of her newly discovered identity. She says there's lot of pre- conceived notions and misconceptions,"I am like a mystery to every person, for some its how i look without cosmetics and for some its question on SRS". She tries hard to explain about it and most of them aren't interested to listen to her but busy staring at her mermaid- body type. When i discussed about it with a lot of people they just said here cross-dressers are not less than a trans gender person, they do it because they want to be a trans gender and either of them don't deserve to be respected. To which my friend adds...

Education is a base from where a young kid learns basic etiquettes of life but some lessons are never taught in the school premises due to which education turns into suffocation. Every child comes with his or her set of problems which are taken into consideration but there are many problems of children’s who are LGBT and they are never considered. I still remember being called by many names and I would never speak up, I thought I was wrong, I was not like the others. At that time i used to ask myself why am I born like this, why people harass me so much. I remember an incident from my 10th grade when a group of my classmates hit me so hard that made me so hyper, I left my classroom for principal’s office. When I recited the incident to her she replied “So what? go to your class”. And that was really rude of her to say. There were girls who use to hate me, they would call me names, today when they message me on social sites saying that “we are proud of you”, I feel where was t...

Previously marriage used to be a platform where two individuals would explore each other still loving and sharing lives. Agreed, it has its pros and cons but we have been spoon fed since ages that marriage is just an agreement to live under a roof, give birth to humans and love happens later. It is wrong! Marriage is a beautiful thing where two souls meet and know each other, start accepting each other with all their flaws. Now marriage for people only means to warm the sheets and reproduce. I have always dreamt about getting married to someone i like but its not the same with everyone from my community. Some people marry to destroy their lives to keep whole society happy. Some people even say that what's wrong with marrying a girl, you get an erection that's enough to reproduce kids and hand it over, the list hence goes on. Scenarios might be different for different people. People get married and then they don't even realise that every human being has his o...

People often ask me why you gays (effeminate gays) address yourselves as female? , why you address each others as 'sisters' or 'mother-daughter'? . Initially i use to think about the same and wonder what would be the reason behind it. As i discovered myself, my feminity and i started embracing it, I thought there's a 'She' within every 'He' and vice verse just realising that and to discover that and later embracing that is left upon us. I am feminine since my childhood as i have even mentioned in my previous write-ups, but is that the reason for me being gay is a big NO. There are many males out their who are feminine and are proud of it and embrace it with dignity. But yes our patriarchal society thinks being feminine is degrading or is something which can be dominated by them and used as per their needs. I was sexually abused and harassed at young age just because i was feminine and they molested my feminity. People make fun o...

Past one year has not only taught me to be proud about myself or to explore my gender identity, it has helped me to understand that unlike my friends i don't believe in having random hookups unless and until I'm not that horny that i want to sleep with someone. I was never introduced to concept of Demisexuality until last year. Demisexuality is the Gray area between Asexuality and Sexuality, where until and unless i don't form an emotional bond with someone, his chances of finding me next to him in bed is just impossible. Nowadays, in life sex is prioritise more than emotions and love, because condoms are easily available than a heart to heart conversation, gazing at stars and discussing about life and random stuff. i prefer not to go with people who believe in taking of pants easily than presenting their heart. And most of the  people wouldn't even believe that I'm a demisexual guy because I'm so open about idea of sex and sexuality and i do crazy stuff i...

Patriarchy is like flood which comes with such a tremendous flow and destroys lives. One such component in the patriarchy is 'GENDER NORM'. Gender norm has been there since ages and it has forced people to follow its terms and conditions.  Well, while growing up i also got to know that gender is assigned to clothes too. And i kept following it for a very long time,until i dint realised 'bout my gender identity. Yes! gender identity and sexual orientation are two different concepts. Being a 'gay' , 'lesbian', 'bi-sexual' tells about your sexual orientation; but gender identity is something which you decide. I identify myself as an 'Androgynous' guy. which means that i posses both qualities of a male and female. Lets come back to the clothes so ya people do assign gender to clothes. I liked heavy lehenga's, saree's, anaarkali's but i hardly liked men's clothes as all i could find is pant and shirt. I wasn't ever allowe...

Its true that no one will love you more than yourself, i didn't love myself and for a fact i was this oil skinned wearing big framed glasse and disastrous clothes kind of boy; But i really thank people who taunted me so much that because of them i explored myself in streets of fashion and that's also the time when i realised that my gender identity to be 'ANDROGYNYOUS'. It wasn't easy to love myself i had to struggle a lot, hear a lot and face a lot to love myself. I am still pampered by my dad and he used to shop for me earlier but after i met my friend about whom i wrote in previous blog i never went on shopping spree with my dad. We used to go to shop together and being a anti social, ambivert and publicly embarrassed person i never interacted with shopkeepers because of their lingo, it was tough for me i was constantly scared that if i behave feminine they would stare at me and would make fun of me. Once we went for shopping at bandra, after shoppin...

I was depressed, i wasn't happy I just thought somehow i need to get him back.  I tried a lot to convince him but he never listened. My depressed self lead me to having physical relation with a guy. I'm so glad that i met him at that point of my life, he never made me feel that i was just a xyz person who needs to have sex; but he actually respected me and listened to my story and i cried and he didn't even touched me that day.  Times changed i was enrolled in junior college, my parents weren't happy with my career choices a teacher, choreographer, fashion designer, journalist aren't  considered as profession in my family at least. i was enrolled in science stream, i somehow deal with it.  Then i met this random guy through a dating app, and our meeting was so mesmerising we were talking about random stuff in life. and that bond blossomed we started meeting regularly; thing which kept us connected was our journey of discovering world and our self. that was fir...

I was aware of the term "gay" but for me it was similar to any derogatory term then. In 9th grade i had a friend in tutorial with whom i shared a not so cordial relationship who later went on to have crush on me. I could notice through her behaviour towards me, the way she used to stare at me in class making me uncomfortable. Back then straights were so much indulged into me that i could never accept myself as gay, i thought its just a term to tease me and i questioned myself, ‘how can i be gay?’. It took me alot of time to accept the same fact. Though i did make the girl understand that i could offer nothing more than friendship but it was clear that she wanted more, someone who could stand besides her and love her unconditionally. She shared minutest of things with me and we became thick friends. Things did not turn out as planned, once out of curiosity and due to my emotional nature i said ‘yes’ to her proposal, which was the biggest mistake of my life; things went haywir...

I had a brief encounter with the operation theatre and it took me a bit time to recover from the trauma. In 7th grade i made a new friend who was like me. That phase was one of the best phases in my life, i suddenly started talking to everyone; though people taunted me, teachers made faces but i never stopped. For me interacting with someone who is like me made me not to feel low about myself. I never stopped dancing, constant dose of mockery along with some really mean taunts where always lashed out on me by my parents and society. Once a man told my dad " Tumcha mulga choreographer bannar pudhe", made such an impact on him that he still hates it. I wanted to participate in inter-school dance competition and in crowd of 60 kids i gave my name as a participant; but that poor teacher questioned my dancing abilities making the fellow classmates roar with laughter. 8th grade was pretty much better compared to the previous year and that's when i left singing and i s...

By age 12, I had never stopped tapping my feet on ground, accidentally i happened to see an episode of ‘Nachle ve’ with saroj khan and she was choreographing on ‘barso re’ song from movie “Guru”,I learnt a few steps from the show and as I was popular in my Chawl I made a team of 5 girls and choreographed them on the same song. Everyone laughed at me because I used to teach making the chawl area my center stage with passerby’s gawking and giggling at me. I prefered to teach in no chaos zone after that. I used to sing the song even though I wasn't so good with lyrics then, no one appreciated my efforts they used to laugh, but that 12year old was so naive that he thought mockery is appreciation.  I choreographed many songs but whenever my dad knew about it he used to feel ashamed. I would take free tuitions which my parents hated, they asked me to stop teaching and just concentrate on my own scores. I was in 6th grade when some teachers supported me while most didn't, one even m...

At 6, I was in first grade and the only time when I stood first in the whole batch. The result of taunts and mocks on my effeminate nature refrained me from participating in any extra curricular activities. Sports day was a day-off for me; and that's the day when my parents asked me to behave boyish and participate in sports. It was never made for me i could hardly run as I had asthma and even if I would run it wouldn't be any less than a slow motion run of heroine towards her hero. By age 7 I was asked to suppress my feminity, constant body language lessons would irritate me and that would result in me behaving more effeminate. It was then that the girl within me was touched by men who thought I was just a toy who can fullfil their desire. I was OK with this until it didn't move towards the unwanted places. By 8 I saw few hijra's clapping outside my door facing towards my neighbor's house, they took that guy away he must have been 14 then and I barely under...

And I blinked, again and again and finally let out a wailing cry which subsided to a smile. While they announced "it's a boy", making a crescent on others face; Patriarchy winked at it's newest prey. I spread happiness around. I remember my mom told me once " You are the gift which Shiva and parvati gave me, they bestowed you in my arms". I couldn’t describe that motherhood bliss in her twinkling eyes along with the way I blushed.  let's commence with a flashback, At the age of 3, I use to watch Ramayana, as I was attracted to Seeta's character that time I didnt know how superior sita was, but I wanted to impersonate her as if I am sita, as if i am a female.To this, my cousin dragged me and said "you are a boy, and boys can either be laxmana or rama" I wasn't anymore interested in playing any games. At the age of 4, I was enrolled in junior school, I  never really thought If i was a boy or a girl, until someone told me tha...

I surrendered to it, Because I was asked to do so, It gave me clueless and valueless life, Never allowed me to respect myself, And made me kill my dreams with knife, It just dragged me to extreme lows, but now it doesn't, because I started saying "NO". "No" to the society which asked me to surrender, "No" to the knife with which i could even kill my life. "No" to hatred which I had about my existence. And finally,  "No" to the "patriarchy". Which was passed through my ancestors to me, and many others like me. Patriarchy tried to defame my dignity, existence and feminity just because I refused to accept gender norms, I didn't fit well into their synonym or perception of how a boy should be, and ironic and hypocritical people around who lived with facade . And also the journey from the day I saw it being applied on me to when I stopped bowing down to it. I didn't give up, i will say no and I will gr...