Kasha: The love of a Hijra
My name is Lily and I am a Hijra belonging to the Hijra or the eunuch community of Mumbai. My Guru baptized me with this name after my operation, when my private parts were chopped off from my body infront of all my Hijra friends and elders, as a sign that now I had become one of them. My Guru named me Lily, for she felt that I was as pure as a lily flower and because I spread the fragrance of my love all through the shambles of the shanty in which we resided in.
After my operation I started to wear a sari like a woman. My Guru taught me the body language of a Hijra, and after a few months, I was acting like a regular Hijra. I would spend my morning and afternoon at signal stops begging and then return in the evening with my Hijra comrades to my Guru’s shanty. There she would count the money we had collected together by begging the whole day in the heat of the scorching sun and would distribute some part of the money to us. I would then be sent to work at the brothel attached to the shanty for the rest of the night.
I’m not ashamed to say that I love my job at the brothel. Why should I be ashamed? I can give pleasure to any man or gay just the way a woman does, maybe even better! Many men come calling out for me as they know that I am one of the best Hijra prostitutes. I love having sex with men, it energizes and purifies me. The scar of me being an ‘in between’ is erased for a while when I am in bed with another ‘normal’ woman’s man.
We have a very tight and strict brothel community where transactions and business is done secretly among the elders. My Guru is always pleased with me and prophesizes every day, that one day after her death, I will take her place as a Guru.
Yes, life was very fulfilling and I was getting enough of money to indulge myself in buying fake jewellery and chocolates . . . I love chocolates, especially caramel filled ones. Life was going on smoothly . . . until the day I fell in love with Kasha.
Many men come to Hijras to have sex with them, maybe because we are different and are more jovial while doing our job, for that is the only thing that your society expects us to do . . . the society that rejected us . . . which rejects us still . . . but Kasha was different.
He was brought into my brothel room one cold December night. He was half drunk but he was a beauty. He looked like a Greek god with a well-toned body and sky blue eyes. When the door was closed upon us, I made him lie down on the bed and started to undress him but suddenly, he got up and held my hand.
“Eh . . . what happened?” I asked in a naughty tone
“No need to take off my clothes . . . .”
“Oh, then should I take off mine?”
Saying that, I dropped my sari pallu and was beginning to open up the hooks of my blouse when he said:
“Let’s just keep both our clothes on okay; I’m not here for sex.”
I placed my pallu back over my left shoulder and froze in fear.
“Are you a reporter?” I asked terrified. The last thing our brothel needed was someone to yank us all off towards the police.
“No just relax okay,” he said massaging his temples and the back of his head, “I just wanted someone to talk to and so. . . .”
“. . . and so you came here. . . TO A HIJRA BROTHEL?”
He looked up at me and smiled a dimpled smile. I will never forget that boyish innocent smile again. It is the smile that haunts my dreams and my every waking hour.
“Sit down,” he said and I obeyed him. Gingerly and now quite self-conscious I fiddled with my fingers and the false gold rings on them. He watched me with that gentle smile upon his handsome face and that is when I realized something . . . he did not belong here, he was not part of the regulars . . . he was different. Then out of the blue he caught hold of my chin gently and studied my face with his sky blue eyes.
