COLUMN

The broken vessel?

Of alternate sexuality and human sensitivities: voices from a twilight world in the outer margins of Indian society.

AT first glance, it looked like any conclave of housewives hunched together on the floor of a dimly lit shanty in a colony in Chennai. Dhanam was the middle-aged hostess, proud of her spotless home, with its shining stainless steel vessels, religious symbols painted on the green wooden door, and framed pictures of gods and goddesses and family members lined on its whitewashed walls. Dhanam's crinkly black hair was gathered into a bun, she wore an ochre-coloured synthetic saree, glass bangles, gold-plated jewellery and a thaali around her neck like all married women.

But, in fact, this was a gathering of eunuchs. Shunned and reviled, cloistered in their secret twilight world, defensively living out their lives in the outer margins of Indian society. Their private realm was astoundingly different from their brash aggressive public appearances at weddings and at births in a family, where they are known to arrive uninvited. They sing risque songs, clap their hands, dance with vulgar gestures and roundly curse the household if they do not pay them enough. In their unique brand of extortionist begging, they brashly parody and parade their ambiguous sexuality as though they do not care. But when they shed their masks, in a shrouded domain to which few outsiders are permitted, there is an overwhelming sense of vulnerability and hurt, and an elaborately constructed alternate community and family to compensate in some small way for all that they have lost.

Dhanam was born in Chennai with the name Dandapani, fifth in a continuous line of six brothers. Only the youngest in the family was a sister. Their father was a Central government employee in the Tobacco Corporation, their mother a housewife. Even as a young boy, Dandapani would like to dress like a girl, play games that girls enjoyed, and carry vessels on his hips. His gait was like that of a girl, he sat with his legs together as girls do, not apart in the easy manner of boys. His brothers were rough and macho, and when they fought him, he would only scratch with his nails, like a girl. "It was a childhood of sadness", Dhanam recalls. "I was always the brunt of ridicule and jokes, both at school and at home. 'Here comes your husband,' the boys would jeer whenever a boy walked close to me. Even as far back as then, they called me pottai, or eunuch."

When Dandapani passed his Class VII examination, his parents pulled him out of school, and sent him instead to work with his brothers in a small factory for the manufacture of stainless steel vessels. They hoped that this would make a man of him. But as Dandapani grew into adolescence, both he and other men, at work and at home, became increasingly conscious of his alternate sexuality. Many cuddled him, and over time he learnt the many ways that men have sex with men. As Dhanam recounted the story of her life to me, there was much that she was reluctant to speak about. Her sexuality was not one of them; on the contrary, it was one aspect of her existence that she celebrated, and she was willing to share more details than I was able to deal with.

By the time Dandapani was 19, all his older brothers were married, and it was Dandapani's turn for the wedding pandal. His parents arranged his match, but Dandapani knew in his heart this was not the life for him. He had by then secretly befriended a group of eunuchs, who recognised him for what he was. "Only snakes can recognise snake's legs," Dhanam said, quoting a Tamil proverb. For the first time in his life, he did not feel lonely or rejected. They accepted him as he was. They also introduced him into casual sex work with men. Dandapani went with them, not so much for the money as for the companionship.

As the date for his wedding drew near, Dandapani decided, in desperation, to run away with a eunuch, Kalaiselvi, with whom he had developed a close bond. For two years, he grew his hair and dressed as a woman, lived with Kalaiselvi, and entered the shadowy and concealed world of eunuchs, or the Ali, as they are known in Tamil Nadu. In Chennai, the Alis do not live in separate ghettos, but are dispersed around the city, in 'normal' neighbourhoods. He learnt that not all eunuchs were castrated. Some, called dangas, are bodily male but with female feelings. They typically lead a double life. By day, they wear male clothes, lungi and shirt, do mainstream male jobs, and have a public face of 'normal' masculinity. But by night they dress as women, and have sex with men. Others they call 'double deckers', or bisexual men. They are often married with children, lead heterosexual lives, but return in secret, whenever they can, to the community of eunuchs, where their hearts really lie. They see no duplicity in the double-life of a 'double-decker', or the dangas who share the lives of their community in secret without taking the drastic and irrevocable decision to alter their own bodies.

Dhanam (left) with Bharati, her 'granddaughter'.

Dandapani's life as a danga came to an abrupt halt, when he was recognised one day, despite his long hair and women's clothes and make-up, by an autorickshaw driver, a close friend of the family. The driver threatened Kalaiselvi, and the community of eunuchs with whom they lived, with violence and police action if Dandapani did not return home immediately. Dandapani pleaded with him not to reveal to his family the secrets of his clandestine sexuality, and promised to return to his family with short hair and in men's clothes.

But the autorickshaw driver did not keep his promise. Dandapani's brothers beat him the night of his home-coming until his whole body was bruised, and his father took him to a doctor to 'treat' him for his illness and prepare him for marriage. Dandapani desperately pleaded with the doctor - why do you want me to ruin a woman's life? He does not know what the doctor said to his father, but it was the last day that anyone from his family pressed him to marry. Let us leave him to his fate, his father said with quiet grief.

Unlike the fate of many other eunuchs, Dandapani's family did not abandon him. Instead, his father opened a shop to help him earn a decent living. It was Dandapani's own decision to leave home. He did not want to cause shame to his family. Moreover, if he did not marry, his younger brother would also be forced to live a bachelor.

When he left his home this time, it was forever. His father and brothers said he was always welcome to visit them, but only if he came dressed as a man. Dandapani was stubborn - either they accepted him as he was, in women's clothes, or not at all. He ruptured all bonds with his childhood when he returned this time to the 'jamaat', or the community of eunuchs.

Dandapani was determined now to go the whole way, not only to dress like a woman and adopt a female name, Dhanam, but also to sever from his body his male organ. It is the hardest, most painful decision that a eunuch takes in his life. It is an affirmation to the world of one's identity, however despised, however marginal, a thrusting aside of all veils of secrecy and a dual existence. It is irrevocable, in a terrible way. There can be no going back.

They call it 'nirvana', or the attainment of enlightenment. It is the one aspect of their collective lives that they still shield most doggedly from outsiders. Over the centuries, little-known folk rituals surround traditional models of castration. From what we could gather - Dhanam refused to speak about this at all - the folk operations occur at the hands of specialised traditional medicine-men in remote forest retreats. The procedure probably involves the use of narcotic drugs, possession and trance, to help deal with the excruciating pain. Healing is by herbs and oil, but many are known to die before they can recover.

Today, most of those who can afford it prefer modern surgery. Dhanam saved money through sex work for three years, before she was ready for the operation. One of the best-kept secrets of the community, so as to protect them from the arm of the law, is the names of the surgeons who perform the operations.

There are many rituals associated with the surgery, and Dhanam recalled these in elaborate detail. There is a 40-day period of ritual healing, in which she is debarred from seeing any men. But she receives a lot of visitors who, like relatives, take care of her as she recovers. On the 39th day, her surgical wounds are fully healed, and she is taken in a procession through the narrow lanes, her braided hair decorated with fresh flowers, in the manner of teenage girls who have just attained puberty. Dhanam showed us a studio photograph of her at that time, resplendent in a red silk saree, flowers woven into the plaits of her hair; she was 28 years old.

That night is like the night before a wedding. Guests are invited, shamianas are erected as in a wedding celebration, loud-speakers blare film songs, and there is dancing, food and gaiety. Celebrations continue through the night, and before dawn she carries a pot of milk to pour into a river or the sea. This is followed by a ceremony like a wedding, in which her adopted 'mother' hands her over to her adopted 'mother-in-law' and ties a thaali around her neck.

Rituals and family relationships that mirror, or to an observer tragically parody, those of the outer world from which they have been excluded, dominate their existence. As Dhanam recounted the details of her life to us, she spent so much of time speaking of the myths and customs that they observe, that at one point we gently interrupted her, saying that it is her life that we were interested in, not the stories of ancient myths. These ancient stories are very much part of my life, she retorted.

One myth that particularly holds sway in the community of eunuchs in Chennai is drawn from the Mahabharata. As the evenly matched armies of the Kauravas and the Pandavas faced each other in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, the gods made known that victory will be achieved by the clan which sacrifices a hero who possesses all the 63 features of ideal masculinity (samudrika lakshanam). Only two men were found to be so endowed. One was Lord Krishna himself, the other was Arvan Swamy, Arjun's son from the daughter of the snake king, Ullippi. Arvan, a youthful bachelor, agreed to be sacrificed, but sought one night of marital bliss before his martyrdom. No woman was prepared to be widowed in a day, so in the end Lord Krishna assumed the form of Mohini and wed Arvan. After the young hero's sacrifice, Krishna wore the mourning robes of a widow. This event is recreated every year in a massive festival at Koovagam village in Tamil Nadu. Based on this myth, eunuchs regard themselves as the reincarnation of Lord Krishna.

Dhanam slipped effortlessly into the alternative mores and webs of relationships of her adopted community. She earned her living through sex work, by dancing as a supporting actress in film studios in Chennai, or by making belligerent appearances at weddings and birth-related ceremonies. They have a string of informants in every neighbourhood, who alert them about festivities. There is a painful irony that the blessings of eunuchs are so culturally significant on joyful family occasions, of which they can biologically never be a part.

There were phases in her life in which Dhanam lived with men, much like married couples. But as Dhanam grew older, she adopted a number of 'daughters' from her adopted community - more than 25 over the years. Her daughters would not visit her home if she lived with a man, so she chose to live alone. 'Daughters' are often men who have secret bonds with their community but live ostensibly normal lives in the world beyond. We met one 'daughter', Nageshwar Rao, in Dhanam's home, a handsome young man with a bushy moustache, dressed in trousers. Nageshwar Rao has a wife and children, who have no inkling about this covert facet of his life. If Dhanam ever sees Nageshwar Rao on the streets with his family, she will never reveal that she recognises him.

But there are other 'daughters' and even 'granddaughters' like Bharati, delicately beautiful with a quality of melancholy in her eyes. She came to Dhanam as a man determined to attain 'nirvana' by going all the way in the journey of a eunuch. Dhanam did all that she could to dissuade her. "Be like Nageshwar Rao, dress like a man by day, and retain the respect of the outside world. There is too much pain, too much loneliness, in this life of ours," she told her. But Bharati was adamant, and threatened to adopt a new 'grandmother' if Dhanam came in her way. She relented, and Bharati now is irrevocably set on the same path that Dhanam had chosen years earlier.

We asked Dhanam if she had any regrets. If she could go back 30 years, would she still choose the same life? Dhanam said wistfully, softly, tentatively: "The truth is that I probably would not. Not only me, who would want to be reborn a eunuch? Even my sworn enemies should never be born like this."

"It is hard to live when men look at you in only one of two ways. Either as an object of sexual attraction, or as an object of ridicule and revulsion. No one looks at us just as people. Ordinary people. If someone gave me ordinary work, even the most menial - sweeping the streets, cleaning toilets, washing dishes - I would happily give up the earnings from sex work. But after what I have done to my body, this path is no longer open to me."

More than she is willing to admit, she misses the family of her childhood. Even when her father died, she was not allowed to join the funeral procession or mourn at his pyre. She watched the procession pass from a distance, and prayed in the solitude of her home.

"But what is the purpose talking of such things?" Dhanam asks. A potter makes a clay vessel, bakes it in the sun. If the pot slips and breaks, there is nothing that any of us can do to join the pieces again.

And yet in all the time that I spoke to her, I never once did see a broken vessel.