My mother and Naina treated me like an emperor; there was no scolding or reprimand. My mother often remarked that I should have been born in a mansion, but instead, I ended up being born in that slum. Education was nowhere to be seen in her family – only one brother among my mother’s eleven siblings received an education. Her brothers were the town’s most notorious thugs. One of her brothers – was my favourite. In his spare time, he would work as a mason. Otherwise, he lived in the toddy shop with his best friend Gudli, who ran a tea shop in Kotwal Chavadi. 

One day, my uncle came home with deep and long cuts all over his body. He looked like a vampire. There was so much blood. Mother screamed and rushed him to the hospital. 

I was six years old then, and I remember that scene vividly. Uncle survived the assault and returned home after two months, on the path to recovery. There were twenty-six cuts on his body, said the doctors. Uncle’s best friend, Gudly, had used a veecharival for the job. Surprisingly, when he got home, my uncle went to the toddy shop with Gudli! 

Whenever he went to the toddy shop, my task was to go there and deliver the fried chicken prepared by my mother for him. 

Last year, when I went to Nagore for my documentary, I made it a point to go to Gudli’s tea shop. There, I asked the person at the cash counter about Gudli. With a surprised look, he said that he was his grandson and showed me a photograph of Gudli displayed in the shop. Thank God! The photo was taken while Gudli was alive, unlike my grandfather’s. 

However, after the bloody incident, my uncle’s story took a turn. He left Nagore for Thanjavur, where he married a beautiful girl. Though he did not quit drinking, he switched over to brandy instead of toddy. Not only that, he never went out to drink, once he got married. He started drinking at home. Uncle has no children. In this family with a long list of violent drunks leading a rough life, I was a boy who preferred to stay awake reading in the dim light of a lamp. Perhaps that convinced my mother that I should have led the life of a prince in an emperor’s palace. And not spend my life, book in hand, in a small hut. 

Why did I choose to stay indoors with a book in hand instead of playing with the other boys? From childhood, I somehow disliked men. Even now, engaging in conversations or interactions with men feels boring to me. My brain plays the role of an enthusiastic accomplice, readily forgetting the names of the men I meet completely. The only names that stick in my memory are those of women. Even on Facebook, where I believe there is a limit of 5000 for the number of friends that one can have, I have 4990 friends, almost all of whom are women. The remaining ten are crucial members in my circle of readers, and if I exclude them too, I would surely be on the way to becoming another starving writer! 

From the age of seven to sixteen, I would always be with girls. I would talk to them. Play with them. But the women around me had housework during the day, so what was I to do with that time? I would read books. In the evenings, I would engage in indoor games with girls. Don’t get me wrong, but there were indoor games that were designated as women’s games, which attracted me the most. I spent evenings playing dhaayam (something like dice) and pallaanguzhi (a board game). That’s why I never learned to ride a bicycle. To this day, I go through life without knowing how to drive any vehicle. 

Boys around my age started calling me khoza (transgender) because I was always with the girls. My build was a bit delicate, so when I walked, my hips would swing like women’s. 

Prakash became my best friend when I failed my pre-university exams and was wandering around town at the age of 18. He suggested a simple way to determine whether I was a man or a woman. Silladi was next to the railway station. (We called our beach silladi). In some huts between silladi and the railway station, he said, were women who could help me out with their bodies for a little money. Prakash suggested that we would go there and find the solution to my gender confusion by sleeping with a girl. As planned, we went to that place one day. 

At that time, there was only one doctor in Nagore, Prakash’s father. However, he did not hold an MBBS degree. As a compounder, he treated everyone in the medical berth with his experience, and locals began calling him ‘doctor.’ Additionally, if someone approached him with a pregnancy, he would abort the child with utmost secrecy. Because of this, women hesitated to visit him even for common ailments like fever and headaches. 

Prakash was ‘rich’ among friends because his father was a doctor. Despite his father not giving him money, he would steal it. With the money he had, we moved to the Silladi cottage.

Surprisingly, Prakash said, ‘I’m not in the mood; we just came to find out your gender. You go alone,’ and sent me into the hut. An old man sitting outside the hut asked us to pay in advance. I remember it was five rupees. This was in the year 1971. 

There was no light inside the hut. A faint glow seeps through holes in the strips above the hut. It’s around five o’clock in the evening. A slender figure in a skirt and half saree approached me. Age was hard to determine, but likely within twenty. I won’t go into detail. When I noticed the arousal of my penis, it confirmed my male identity.

However, the inability to perform penetration, a crucial aspect of the sexual act, became a problem. I came out without being able to do anything.

“Hey Prakash, I couldn’t figure out if I’m male or khosa,” I shared my concern. 

“Well,” he responded, “untie it, and let me see.”

By Charu Nivedita