Book Review of I am Vidya by Living Smile Vidya
I am Vidya: A
Transgender’s Journey by Living
Smile Vidya is the story of a woman born in the body of a man. The
stereotypical male-female categories in which we divided our society often show
not our knowledge of human sexuality, but the lack of it. Call it a glitch in
our mental process, but so far we have showed our demerits in defining ‘nature’
only through the scratchy glass of that wisdom. And we denied anything that
doesn’t confirm our pet wisdom. The third gender is one such case. What we
achieved with this denial is a stark social disparity, that we conveniently assume,
doesn’t exist.
In a family with a crushing poverty, birth of a boy is a
thing most longed for. Ramaswami shaved
his head in pious offering at the Vayalur Murugan temple in Tiruchi and promised
Lord Muruga that if he was blessed
with a son this time, he’ll name the boy after the Lord. So when on 25th
March, 1982, the newborn child was named Saravanan
which is one of the many names of the Lord. He was looked upon as a saviour. He
was showered with affection and benevolence. Great care was taken to ensure
that he studied well. The father worked as a sweeper and struggled to make ends
meet. The mother and the daughters laboured at home. Yet the boy was shielded
from all this drudgery, so that he could study. He did what he was expected to
do, and did it quite well.
Little did the family know about the conflict that had
already taken its root in the boy. Saravanan liked to dance and sing like the
ladies he watched on television. He loved the way they wore their dresses. He
wanted to try them himself. He loved to wear his sister’s skirts, bindis and
bangles. He liked to wear them and dance. When no one was around, he did
exactly that. He liked to think himself more as a girl. He liked to wrap a
towel around his head and pretend it was his long hair. But all this was
fraught with risk – the risk of being found out.
Sometimes, Radha or Uncle knocked at the door while I was still dancing. I then took off my sari in a flash and rushed breathlessly to open the door.
When the family come to know about this habit, they didn’t
take it seriously. However the woman inside Saravanan tried to assert herself
time and again. When this became somewhat conspicuous, he was ridiculed and
teased for her effeminate ways. The conflict became more pronounced as he grew
older.
I was a girl. Unfortunately, the world saw me as a boy. Inwardly I wanted to be a girl, by I made every effort possible to hide my feminity from the outside world.
The conflict tore him apart. It was like living the life of
another person. Then Saravanan met Senthil, another transgender like himself.
Senthil told him about an NGO where Saravanan later became a regular. There
were others like him. Meeting them, talking to them proved to be liberating.
Thus began his long arduous journey that finally ended his transforming into
Vidya.
Reading the biography I
am Vidya by Living Smile Vidya
was a remarkable experience. But even that was an understatement. It was
rather, enlightening, life-changing sort of experience. There is our world and then there is their world. These two worlds seldom
intersected, but not without conflict, aggression or some sort of revulsion on
our part. Perhaps we secretly do acknowledge them, and wish their path never
crosses ours.
This book tells us about many things about the transgender
community that most of us never knew. We often see transgender begging in
trains, traffic signals. May be we think they are slackers and despise them for
that. We want them to do something more meaningful – like a job or something. We
want them to stop begging, stop clapping, because it’s just too annoying. Don’t
think it is easy for them either.
For the first fifteen days of my begging career, my extreme diffidence made it difficult for me to put my hand out in supplication – especially for alms. Shame, fear, ego, my education, memories of awards and rewards and God knows what else made me pull back every time I tried.
The truth is, in the world of transgender, there are only
two sources of income – begging or sex work. Then there is the humiliation and
insult that shadow their every move. The government doesn’t acknowledge them.
They don’t have a ration card or a voter card. They don’t get protection from
police when they are assaulted. When they try to sell things on a train, the
same people who used to give them alms, look away. Our world has absolutely no
business if they survive or die. They didn’t choose the life of beggars. We
forced it upon them.
The objective of I am
Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey, however is not to arouse compassion. No,
pitying them is the last thing they want you to do for them. What they want you
is just to acknowledge them as they are.
My expectations were simple: I wanted to live a normal life like all men and women. My being a tirunangai was natural, just as men are men, women are women, and cats are cats. Trouble arises when people do not understand this simple truth.
In our country, minorities have rights. So do the backward
castes. They can earn their livelihood. The fact that even transgender are
human beings like us, had escaped our mind. That they are the citizens of this
country as much as we are, had never occurred to us.
Perhaps after reading I
am Vidya by Living Smile Vidya, one
will be able to see things in a different light.
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