When Madhu returned from the movie, the mood in Hijra House was tense. The day of the jamaat always made gurumai scowl. She had told Madhu many times that had it not been for the fact that she ran a brothel, she would have been a nayak, one of the seven hijra leaders of Bombay.
When gurumai was much younger, she had openly questioned the council’s refusal to acknowledge that hijras were involved in sex work. Her argument was simple: Offering blessings in exchange for money was a predatory act. It thrived on people’s superstitions and fears, and there was no proof that the blessings worked. So why were the hijras who did this work considered respectable when their income was built on a lie? On the other hand, prostitution was real. It was as honest a job as butchering or baking. “And it works,” she had joked, much to the amusement of some of the younger hijras. But her views were not entertained.
Gurumai’s anxiety was not helped by the fact that all the members of Hijra House were glued to the TV that afternoon. The whole nation was in an uproar over a recent crime. Six billion souls were passionately demanding the blood of three men who had raped a bride on her wedding night. One of the men was her neighbour. Until last night, everyone had wanted the rapists dead. Now a new solution had been proposed.
“Castrate them,” said the female lawyer on TV. “Let the animals live. Don’t kill them. Let them live.”
There was applause from the studio crowd. A politician who sat next to the lawyer agreed. He was pushing for the reinstatement of an old law, formed during British rule, that would allow rapists’ penises to be severed.
“Perhaps the death penalty is not enough,” he said. “Maybe castration is a bigger deterrent. These people need to be humiliated. Make them hijras.”
When she heard that, gurumai’s back slumped, as if there were no vertebrae holding her up. “What they’re saying is that our existence is a fate worse than death. I don’t think they will ever understand us,” she said.
Madhu silently agreed. The debate shouldn’t become about hijras, But when would the third gender come first?
“Shut that shit off,” said gurumai, when the program broke for a commercial.
Madhu glanced at her. Gurumai was determined to look her best today, but she was struggling. The sweat on her face gave her away. Strands of her silvery hair stuck to her forehead, and there were heavy, wet stains under her armpits. She had told Madhu that she did not want to take Dr. Kyani’s painkillers because she had to remain sharp for the council meeting later on. And now the debate on TV was depressing her as much as it was Madhu.
Madhu was as hopeful as everyone else that the accused would pay for the vileness of their act. But in the pursuit of justice, why were the hijras being spat upon? For her and her sisters, castration was a pathway to a higher life. It’s what gave them respect. It also bothered Madhu how much coverage this incident was getting: a bride had been violated on that most sacred of nights. But what about ordinary women on ordinary nights? Or indecent women, perhaps, like sex workers? Or hijras? What happened when less-than-ordinary souls got violated? Why not create a furor then? Why let their pain slide away like rainwater into a gutter?
“Ladies and gentlemen, let me bring your attention to the hijras, women, and children of Kamathipura,” she would have said if she had been on that show. Here, in Hijra Gulli, everyone had a hideous memory or two lying around in their pockets like small change. And, like small change, they were considered insignificant.
Just as Madhu was about to sink into a pool of gloom, gurumai asked her to massage her legs. Even though Madhu was tired, the physicality of the task started to ease her mind. The purrs of pleasure that came as every drop of Ayurvedic oil seeped into gurumai’s calves, calmed Madhu as well. Somehow gurumai always managed to settle her down. But that feeling quickly dissipated when Umesh showed up with his real estate woes.
“Forgive me,” said Umesh. “I should have called.”
“I’d offer you some chai, but you won’t be staying long,” gurumai said.
“What I have to say will only take a minute.”
“Then why say it at all?”
Umesh looked around the room. He noticed the incense sticks, the thin white smoke curving toward the ceiling.
“You had the place cleaned?” he asked.
“Yes,” said gurumai. “In your honour. I had a feeling you’d be back.” She offered Madhu her other leg. Now the left calf needed looking after.
“The stables are going to be shut down,” said Umesh.
At the mention of the stables, gurumai’s calves tightened. Madhu doubted that Umesh understood that the stables of Kamathipura had a special place in gurumai’s heart. Very few people knew that she had slept in the hay on her first night in Kamathipura with the horses for company.
“The inspector paid a surprise visit,” he said. “He found that the horses were too thin and were stepping in their own shit and urine.”
“Many humans also step in their own shit and urine. What’s your point?”
“The builder I work for is buying the stables.”
“Congratulations,” said gurumai. “Would you like a laddoo?”
“Look…,” said Umesh, trying to contain himself. He shuffled about, searching for his next words. Gurumai was skilfully pricking his ego with the edge of a dai-ma’s knife, but he was taking it better than Madhu would have expected. He must really want Hijra House.
“We have also acquired the steel mills at Two Tanks,” he said. “And I’m here to make an honest offer.”
“I don’t doubt your offer,” said gurumai. “You are honest about buying, and I am honest about not selling. I’m not saying this to get a higher price. This is not just our home; it’s our grave. We will die here.”
“Then why not die richer? We are not asking you to relocate. Once the new building comes up, you will have flats to stay in. You and your chelas can still live here, but in better conditions.”
“Please don’t insult me by making such a statement.”
“You will have it in writing.”
“Like the residents of Bachuseth Ki Wadi? Once the new building went up, no one wanted to live next door to prostitutes and bar dancers. We are allowed on paper, but never in people’s hearts.”
“If that’s how you feel, we can consider giving you a small unit on the side.”
“Look at him,” gurumai said to Madhu. “We have not even moved in and already he is throwing us out!”
“I can offer you a crore for this place. You and I both know it is not worth that much.”
“Then why offer? Why do you need this hole?”
“Because this hole is causing an even bigger one in our pocket. There are two builders fighting to get a contract to redevelop Kamathipura. Whoever gets a seventy per cent majority can go to the government and bid for the contract. We have spent a lot of money on bribes so the contract doesn’t go to the rival builder. But even bribes have an expiry date. So this place is important to us.”
“The only time they need us is when they want us to leave,” said gurumai to Madhu.
Then she moved her leg away from Madhu and sat up straight. “Go tell your builder he does not have my vote.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Umesh. “If you do change your mind, you have until tonight. After that, there’s nothing I can do.”
“I appreciate your concern.”
“All I’m saying is that the horses in those stables have been standing in their own shit for years. Someone finally noticed.”
Gurumai spat the tobacco she was chewing into her spittoon as a last word to Umesh. He left, disgruntled but not defeated. There was a sly grin on his face.
“He’s too confident,” said Madhu. “He knows something.”
“He can know how to make his own mother come. I’m not selling.”
Although she kept her mouth shut out of respect, Madhu was convinced that gurumai was in no condition to attend the jamaat. It had been months since she had walked down the stairs of Hijra House. And indeed, halfway down, her knees buckled and she started coughing; Bulbul quickly borrowed a chair from one of the carrom players outside. After sitting for about fifteen minutes, gurumai finally managed to get into the waiting taxi. Madhu and Bulbul climbed in beside her.
The building where the jamaat was being held was called “Lucky Compound,” and even though it wasn’t in the greatest shape, it was definitely more fortunate than its namesake in the suburbs, a newly built structure that had suddenly collapsed one night. This original still-standing Lucky Compound had been given as a gift to the hijra elders. Only the elders knew who the benefactor was, and gurumai often said that if she could find out who this person was, she would approach him with a business venture. She wanted to open up franchises, like the McDonald’s that had sprung up a short distance from Kamathipura, on Bellasis Road. Her idea was to open small McBrothels that could be duplicated in all the main metros. Then she’d have a business card that she could stick up the bums of the elders. Perhaps they’d finally accept that prostitution was just as respectable as other hijra occupations. For now, she was entering the jamaat on unequal footing. If she hadn’t been a dai-ma, she’d have been asked to stand in a corner and would have been given no respect at all.
Madhu had attended many gatherings before, and she could sense that as the hijra leaders got older, their hunger for respect increased. As their bones turned brittle, money and power were the only forms of calcium that worked. Each of the seven hijra houses of Bombay was represented: Haji Ibrahimwala, Poonawala, Dongriwala, Bhendi Bazaarwala, Lalanwala, Lashkarwala, and Chaklawala. Each clan had one leader, the nayak. But above all of these mighty chiefs was one supreme commander: Bindu nayak, leader of the Haji Ibrahimwala clan. Her clan was considered the most superior of the lot, and the hijras of that house walked with that knowledge in mind.
The nayaks were seated in a closed circle on the ground. The rest of the hijras—scores of them crowded around their leaders—were never allowed to be part of the circle. They had to remain outside it. They were the debris. Madhu could not help but stare at one of the leaders, Kanta nayak. Her stomach was so large, one could have mistaken her for being pregnant if only she did not look like an old man. Gurumai always remarked that Kanta nayak needed two chelas around her at all times, one to carry the sagging skin on her jowls, and the other to support her belly. But her eyes were as sharp as a moneylender’s.
“You seem to be doing well,” Madhu heard Kanta nayak snidely remark to Samira nayak, referring to the jewellery the latter wore. Even though all the nayaks lived in the same building, sometimes they did not communicate with each other for weeks, focusing only on matters pertaining to their own clan. They were always locked in a silent power struggle, and a jamaat was the perfect venue for each to try to establish her supremacy.
“Maybe it is destiny that has brought us together tonight, for I have some disturbing news,” said Bindu nayak, addressing those gathered. “But first let us get a few matters out of the way.”
She started with one of Kanta’s chelas, who had been blacklisted six months ago for abusing her guru. She had spent the intervening months begging near the airport and was in ill health. She wanted to be readmitted to the clan.
“Munni, stand up,” said Bindu nayak.
From among the group of hijras, a lanky figure rose. She looked ashen, an effect heightened by the fact that the other hijras had put on makeup and she had not. She wore her hair in a bun, but it was still dishevelled, stubborn straw.
“Munni, what do you have to say for yourself?” asked Bindu nayak.
All the hijras stared at Munni. Madhu shivered. It was a hijra’s greatest fear to be asked to leave the house she had sworn allegiance to. She would become an instant pariah.
“Speak, my child.”
Munni had nothing to say. She started shaking. The hijra next to her was clearly disturbed by her silence but was afraid of reaching out to her on account of the nayak Munni had offended. It would be interpreted as an insult.
“Munni, your offence was that you threw your guru’s spittoon back into her face. Then you called her a fat pig,” said Bindu nayak.
The offence was always stated aloud so the rest of the community could understand what constituted a punishable offence. It was also an opportunity to make Kanta nayak’s shame public. That was how Bindu nayak ruled: through humiliation.
“What do you have to say, Munni?”
Munni finally found the courage to look up at Bindu nayak. Her eyes were teary and bloodshot. She folded her hands together in Kanta nayak’s direction. There was no question about her sincerity.
“Kanta, do you take her back?” asked Bindu nayak.
“I’m sorry,” said Kanta nayak. “But after what she has done, I cannot accept her.”
“I understand,” said Bindu nayak.
Bindu nayak looked around the room. A hijra’s future would be decided in the next few minutes.
“Do we have any takers for Munni?” asked Bindu nayak. “What can you do, Munni? What are your special skills?”
Munni looked too underfed and tired to remember. She seemed defeated, like she’d already surrendered to the possibility that she would be spending another six months on the streets, without a roof, without a master.
It seemed no one was willing to take her.
“Fine,” said Bindu nayak.
She motioned to a disciple of hers, who took a steel tray and placed it at Kanta nayak’s feet. A red cloth lay in the centre of the tray. Madhu watched as Kanta nayak put her hand underneath the red cloth and raised it an inch or two. Apparently, there was an adequate amount of cash under the cloth, because she nodded her approval.
Bindu nayak was the only guru who could accept this miscreant now, and she had showed her magnanimity. She had accepted a hijra who was of almost no value. Munni stood rooted to the spot, waiting for the next move.
“Deen, deen, deen,” said Bindu nayak.
Although these words were usually spoken only when a person was being initiated into the hijra community for the very first time, Bindu nayak used them to signal a fresh start.
“Munni, you are my disciple now. Come, my child.”
Munni rushed to her new mother and melted in her arms. A hijra had been traded. The jamaat was off to a forgiving start.
Next, there was an argument about territories.
Kanta nayak accused Samira nayak’s chelas of begging near Bandra station. Samira nayak said that she did not remember ever agreeing not to send her disciples there. After some bickering back and forth, Bindu nayak decreed that it was Kanta nayak’s domain, thus helping her save some of the face she had lost. To appease Samira nayak, Bindu nayak told her that her disciples could work on the trains themselves, all the way up to Bombay Central. They were free to charm the passengers on the Central Line for the next fiscal year. After that, the contract would have to be renewed.
“Just one rule,” said Bindu nayak. “Don’t flash any of the passengers. In Virar, one hijra lifted her sari when a woman refused to give anything. She turned out to be a cop’s wife. The hijra got the beating of her life. Also, it’s not good for our image. So no flashing.”
“Flash your tits instead,” said Kanta nayak.
“Much better,” said Bindu nayak.
“By the way, there’s a new shop in Dongri that sells the cheapest padded bras. The quality is great. I’ve asked him to make neon ones.”
Before things got out of hand and raucousness set in, Bindu nayak motioned that she wanted to speak. The volume came down, and only the moths banging into each other around the sizzling tube lights could be heard.
“I’m disturbed,” said Bindu nayak. “Rumours are being spread about the hijra community.” Then she looked straight at gurumai. “Do you know anything about this?”
“No,” said gurumai. “Should I?”
“There is word that you have been using Hijra House as a shelter for pojeetives,” she said.
“So what if I am?” gurumai said defiantly. “If we don’t look after our own, who will?”
“Your intention is good,” said Bindu nayak, surprisingly gentle in her tone. “But why invite an outsider to see what you are doing? Why invite a real estate agent to hold the hand of a dying pojeetive?”
Oh no, thought Madhu. Gurumai’s plan had backfired. She had tried to shock Umesh into never coming back to Hijra House, but what had happened had reached the ears of the hijra elders. What game was Umesh playing?
“The person who gave us this building now thinks we are also hiding pojeetives in our rooms. Your antics with this agent, whoever he is, have caused us great discomfort.”
“His name is Umesh,” said gurumai. “And he is a troublemaker.”
“What does he want?”
“We are one of the few buildings preventing his builder from getting a seventy per cent majority of the property in Kamathipura.”
“Thanks to him, we have been asked to take a test by the owner of our building.”
“What test?”
“To see if we are pojeetive. It’s just a pressure tactic…He thinks we will influence you to sell. All these builders are connected.”
“I’m sorry you have to go through this,” said gurumai. “But I’m not selling.”
“Are you sure?”
“As sure as a pojeetive is of dying.”
Somehow Bindu nayak did not mind the sharpness of gurumai’s tone. If anything, she seemed to admire her resilience.
“Then we will support you,” said Bindu nayak. “And to show our support, we will continue the night’s festivities at Hijra House.”
For the first time in history, the seven hijra nayaks entered Kamathipura. They graced Hijra Gulli like spiritual souls finally blessing the cursed and the wretched. It made Madhu want to throw up.
But there was no doubt that the presence of the nayaks was giving the hijras of Kamathipura some hope. Old enemies were making up, hugging each other outside on the street, sharing cigarettes and laughter, exclaiming that they really only had each other to count on. In Madhu’s eyes, the lane that had once boasted more than five hundred hijra prostitutes suddenly regained its lost glory. It was experiencing a major boost of power, a heroin shot so beautiful that everyone felt it at once. The clattering of bangles, the flip-flop of chappals, and the exaggerated fluttering of eyelashes was all a unified effort to defy God. The caricature that was each hijra’s face, the smudged red lips, the white powder, the pockmarks, were a challenge to Him. That which He had given, they had altered. In creating them unequal and tainted, God had left in them a hunger to look beautiful, a need so fierce, they were ready to skin doves and wear them on their faces.
Upstairs, gurumai finally had her wish: she was smoking a chillum with the seven nayaks, and even though this was not an official gathering anymore, all the nayaks were seated in a circle, and gurumai was part of it. She was finally inside the circle. Madhu was happy for her. But she could tell from gurumai’s watery eyes that she was taking too much opium. The other nayaks were sharing a chillum, but Bindu nayak had given a special chillum to gurumai, just for her use, and it was making her heady in more ways than one. Madhu was worried that gurumai would embarrass herself in front of the nayaks. The last time she had overdosed on opium, she had hallucinated and had been severely constipated for a week.
Gurumai saw Madhu hovering and motioned for her to come close.
“Padma just called me,” said gurumai. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
“I want to be here,” said Madhu. “If you need anything.”
“Go to Padma. Something’s come up.”
“But I want to stay…”
“Go,” said gurumai.
“Go easy on the opium,” whispered Madhu. “Please.”
“You are a good child,” said gurumai, patting Madhu’s cheeks.
She said it with the generosity of someone who is high, but also with love, and that made Madhu want to stay even more. But she knew better than to argue with gurumai in front of the nayaks.
“I need some golis,” said Madhu. “For my work.”
Gurumai gestured for Madhu to take some from the small bowl by her side: tiny opium pills that went by the names of Chandu and God’s Dream.
As Madhu walked down the stairs, the absence of men on the stairwell pleased her. The brothel felt like a home when hijra arseholes were on strike. When hijra arseholes had a “No Entry” sign posted on them, the real arseholes had nowhere to go—the men simply skulked away, not used to being rejected. None of them would dare to abuse a single hijra today. There was an army of hijras in the street, their bodies sticking unusually close to each other. Glued together by the tasty desire for revenge, they were ready to inflict pain upon man, that terrible thing they were almost born as.
Bulbul was chewing on some kebabs outside Hijra Gulli, forsaking her diet for the night. Madhu took a couple of pieces from her, and a swig of alcohol from a hijra she had never seen before. As she chewed, some strands of mutton got stuck between her teeth. By the time she was done removing all but the last tiny one, she was standing face to face with Padma in her brothel. She let the mutton strand remain. She respected its spirit. The goat it once was must have been a fighter.
“The client has paid the advance on the parcel,” said Padma. “So get her ready.”
“Tonight?” asked Madhu.
“No, the day after tomorrow.”
“But…then what was so urgent?”
“The client wants a photo of the parcel.”
Padma took the phone she had given Madhu and punched in a mobile number. “Do you know how to send a photo from the mobile?”
“Yes,” said Madhu.
“Then get it done. And remove everything from the phone.”
In one swift stroke, Padma would recover every single rupee she had spent on the parcel. On the first night, the parcel would fetch Padma at least ten times her cost, and yet the parcel would remain a slave for years.
They were in Salma’s room. Madhu had dressed the parcel up in clothes that Salma had bought for her at the midnight market. The lighting in the room was too dim, the surroundings too bleak, and Madhu was having a hard time trying to make the parcel look fresh. She looked young, but the skin underneath her eyes was sunken. This was the first time a client had asked for a photograph. Normally, flesh was flesh.
“Do you know why I’m taking your picture?” asked Madhu.
“Yes.”
The firmness of the parcel’s reply surprised Madhu and made her snap the picture almost involuntarily. The result was a bit hazy.
“You want to show it to someone…,” said the parcel.
“Who?”
“A man.”
“That’s right,” said Madhu. “Now sit still. You are moving.”
But the parcel was not. It was Madhu’s hand that was moving, struggling to get the right composition for the photograph. She took two more shots and noticed how the parcel was staring straight into the camera, without any shyness or fear. She was trying to say something to Madhu, or to the man who would finally see the photograph. Tonight, the parcel had a different quality.
“Why are you doing this?” asked the parcel.
“Quiet,” said Madhu. “Sit still.”
The phone’s battery was dying and Madhu was frustrated.
“Please,” said the parcel. “Tell me.”
It wasn’t the first time a parcel had asked Madhu this question. But the coldness in her voice was new. She had stopped pleading. She just honestly wanted to know.
“I’m trying to take a picture,” said Madhu.
“You will not help me this time,” said the parcel.
“I will,” said Madhu.
A final click. She got the picture she needed. It was the size of a passport photograph, but it captured the parcel’s entire body. There was no emotion on her face, just the facts: black hair, black eyes, and so on. The photo was ordinary and had a grainy look about it. It gave the impression that this girl was somewhere far away. It also suggested that there was an aura of simplicity about the girl—she did not know too much or think too much, and would perhaps not offer much resistance.
Satisfied, Madhu took out an opium pill from the pouch in her sari.
“I want you to take this,” she said. “I want to see the effect it has on you. I will give it to you again when you meet the man. It will help you stay calm.”
But the parcel wasn’t listening. “In my village, there was a girl…three years older than me. She had to get married to an old man.”
“You’re not getting married.”
“I will get married many times,” said the parcel.
“Yes,” said Madhu.
Then, not knowing what else to do, Madhu showed the parcel her photograph. “Here,” she said. “This is the one I will be sending.”
When the parcel saw it, she stared at it for a few seconds. Then she slowly reached out, took the phone in both hands, and placed it in her lap. It was as though she was talking to herself in the picture, telling herself she would be fine. It was a moment of intense concentration between two girls. The girl in the photograph was the one who would be hurt, but the girl sitting on the bed was the one who would feel the pain.
The opium had the desired effect on the parcel. She was calm and relaxed. If Madhu timed things correctly, the parcel would be sufficiently numb on the night of her opening, still show some signs of life as per the client’s needs, and not remember everything afterwards.
Madhu did not even bother putting her back in the cage. She left her at the foot of the ladder just below the loft. The girl’s eyes were half closed and there was a slight smile on her face, as though she had just heard the chirp of her favourite bird, or her mother’s voice calling out to her, telling her that lunch was ready. She had made no movement apart from a single tilt of the head in the past hour. There had been no hallucinations. She took well to the drug. She was drowsy, with the simple illusion that perhaps life was worth living.
It was the same illusion that the hijras of Kamathipura were perpetuating with their camaraderie that night. Lane Five was celebrating as well—perhaps there was a wedding. Four drummers and three keyboard players dressed in glittering gear were playing at a thunderous volume. Despite the heat, the drummers were wearing white gloves. Young men danced around the band, their faces stupid and full of glee, their shirts sticking to their backs with sweat in thick blotches. One of the men was dancing with money clenched between his teeth. He held both his hands high, with forefingers pointing upward, while he swayed from side to side. He took the money out of his mouth and circled it over the head of another man, as women watched from behind window grilles only a floor above the street. Madhu could hear the drumming all the way back to Hijra Gulli.
Then there was another sound mixed with the distant drumming.
Someone was wailing. Madhu stopped walking. She stood still and tried to block out the band. There was no mistaking it; it was not one person, but a chorus of crying—hysterical shrieks of loss that only hijras were capable of.
She picked up her pace and rounded the corner. Men had left their carrom boards to crowd around the staircase to Hijra House. They were trying to peer in, but the dank darkness and a swarm of hijras blocked their view. Madhu pushed through them all and rushed up the stairs. She passed hijra after hijra, but not one familiar face. No one talked to her; no one told her a thing. Her mind, frantic, jumped straight to Bulbul.
But Bulbul was on the floor, wailing the loudest, along with Anjali, Tarana, Sona, and Roomali. Devyani was standing against the wall, stone-faced. Madhu asked Bulbul what was wrong, but Bulbul was too delirious to answer. Then Madhu saw the broken bangles on the floor: shattered fragments of blue and red and yellow.
Madhu’s heart stopped; she knew what that meant. But she kept moving ahead, toward the nayaks. Bindu nayak stepped forward and tried to embrace Madhu, but Madhu brushed her away. She wanted to get to the body. She wanted to see it for herself. She did not want anyone to tell her anything. Not a word. She wanted to see.
Gurumai was lying on her back, her mouth slightly open, her eyes closed. Madhu reached for her, but hands held her back. Only a foot away from gurumai, Madhu collapsed like a weak sapling. A pathetic stillness gripped her. Someone propped her up but she rejected their help. She stood on her own, rising from the ground like someone a hundred years old.
The nayaks were suffocating her with their stares and concern, hovering around gurumai with the bent necks of vultures. Behind Madhu, her sisters were shrieking, but she herself was not capable of making a sound. Then the smell woke her—the many scents mingling in the room, of liquor, sweat, and sweet perfume. The smell shocked her into movement. She took one step forward and touched the body.
Gurumai’s stomach was the first part she touched. Maybe it was because gurumai was her mother. She noticed that gurumai’s hair was dishevelled and knew she would not like that at all. Madhu lifted her head and adjusted her hair, and in doing so, felt a whisper of breath come out of gurumai’s lips onto her forearm. Perhaps gurumai was trying to tell her something. Or perhaps it was simply the remainder of a word, the second half of the last word gurumai ever spoke. Half formed, it had to come out.
It was meant for Madhu.
“It is God’s will,” said Bindu nayak. “It is God’s will. May God keep her safe.” She came over to Madhu, but Madhu curdled at her touch, and she knew that Bindu nayak sensed it. Confused, she raised her head. Gurumai might not be breathing, but there were still hordes of hijras in the room who were, and their breath was twisting Madhu into shapes she had never felt before.
“We will have to proceed with the burial tonight itself,” said Bindu nayak as gently as possible. “All the nayaks are here. She would have liked us to perform the rituals.”
“What happened?” asked Madhu. “How did she…”
She could not use the word yet. She did not want to.
“We don’t know. That’s the beauty of her death,” said Bindu nayak. “But what a night to go on. In the presence of all the nayaks. Even I would wish for a death like that.”
Madhu watched, too dazed to process what she was witnessing.
A bucket of hot water lay at gurumai’s feet. The nayaks tied white pieces of cloth around their hands and began to wash the body. None of the disciples was allowed near gurumai. She had seven children but not a single one of them was cleaning her.
“I want to do this,” said Madhu. “Let us do this.”
“If the nayaks are here…” Bindu nayak shook her head. “She was our most respected dai-ma.”
Gurumai’s naked body was covered with a green cloth. Madhu wanted the cloth to be removed. Gurumai had been born a hijra and she was proud of it. If she’d had her way, she would have walked naked every day of her life, her body a reminder of the maker’s cruelty and imperfection.
“I will stand naked before God,” she had once said to Madhu. “If He also lowers his eyes in shame, just like humans do, then I will know that hijras are a mistake. But if He looks me straight in the eye, then we are the perfect creation, higher than man or woman.”
Bulbul placed her hand over Madhu’s eyes and wiped them.
“Don’t cry,” she said through her own curtain of tears. “If you cry, what will happen to the rest of us?”
“I’m not crying.”
It was true: Madhu’s eyes were burning, not crying. She was incensed at not being allowed to send her own mother home. She moved closer to the body. Bindu nayak stopped tending to gurumai and signalled for the others to continue.
“I hear you have a man who works in a hospital?” she asked Madhu. “Can he get us an ambulance to transport the body? Once the sun comes up, we cannot bury her. We will have to wait another day.”
“So wait,” Madhu said. “Let the body stay here so people can come and pay their respects.”
“Those who matter are here already.”
“To you, perhaps,” said Madhu.
Madhu could see that she was trying Bindu nayak’s patience, but she wanted to keep gurumai with her another day. She wanted to sit alone with the body. There were so many things she wanted to tell gurumai. So many questions remained unasked and were sitting on her chest like giant crucifixes.
“Call your man,” said Bindu nayak.
“Why not use the cars you came in?”
“We want the nayaks and body to all travel together.”
Madhu dialled Gajja, but when she spoke into the phone, her voice cracked. When it vaporized, she passed the phone to Bulbul.
Now that the body was washed, Bindu nayak took off her chappals. She handed Madhu one.
“Here,” she said. “This much you can do. You start.”
All seven disciples removed their footwear and stood in a circle around the body. Madhu was the first one to strike. She raised the chappal high above her head and brought it down on gurumai’s stomach. After three strikes from her, the rest followed. They beat gurumai’s body and cursed it for being a hijra. Their beatings were a warning for her never to take rebirth as one. Madhu flinched as she did this. In all her years, she had never raised her hand to gurumai, and now they were chastising her when she was not capable of emitting a single word in reply. Bulbul stopped hitting gurumai and fell over the body, taking a couple of beatings herself. Madhu quickly pulled her away.
When Gajja arrived, gurumai’s body was taken down the stairs and into the night.
The carrom players and steelworkers were still out there, but the hijras formed a barricade around gurumai, preventing them from having a look at the body. This was the reason hijras were buried at night: as the soul left the body, it was the duty of those left behind not to let the look of strangers defile it. One look by man or woman, one sneer or disgusted glance, and the soul was trapped again.
Gajja looked at Madhu, and she gestured that she was okay. He sat in the front with the ambulance driver and urged the nayaks to hurry because he needed to get the ambulance back to the hospital as soon as possible. The nayaks sat in the back with gurumai. Once again, Madhu was left out in the cold, a reminder that hierarchy, not love, ruled her world. It should have been Bulbul and her in there, sitting on either side of gurumai, holding their mother’s hand. Instead, she and Bulbul were trailing the ambulance in a taxi.
When had gurumai breathed her last? Was it when Madhu had been taking the parcel’s picture? Was that why Madhu’s hands had been so shaky? Could she feel gurumai’s longing for her, the need to be comforted during those last few breaths? Madhu’s brain was a tangled nest of thoughts, and yet events were moving so quickly, so smoothly.
Through her haze, Madhu was surprised to see that a grave was ready at the cemetery in Nariyalwadi, waiting for gurumai.
But then again, Bindu nayak owned five graves in this burial ground, including one for herself. She had bought them years ago, when graves were cheaper. Now graves were real estate too, resold at a higher value. Sometimes cemeteries reused old graves, dumping one body on top of an older one.
The ambulance stopped outside the graveyard gates.
The nayaks pulled the stretcher out and laid it on the ground. There were no flowers for gurumai. Madhu would have liked to put flowers on the cloth that covered her. This was all so plain, so ordinary for someone as dazzling as gurumai.
At last it was the disciples’ turn to take over. The final walk would be theirs and theirs alone. The nayaks took the cloth off gurumai’s body and propped the stretcher up vertically, so that it looked as though gurumai was standing. Madhu then placed herself directly in front of gurumai, and allowed her to fall into her arms, as one would accept a child. Behind gurumai, Devyani took the place of the stretcher; Madhu then made gurumai stand erect against Devyani’s tall figure.
Now Bulbul and Madhu stood on either side of gurumai while Tarana and Anjali tied gurumai’s ankles with a thin rope to Bulbul’s and Madhu’s. Gurumai was now propped between Madhu and Bulbul with her arms around their shoulders, the three of them like bosom friends coming out of a bar. In this way, holding their mother up, they walked gurumai to her grave, tall and respectful, her eyes closed but her body moving forward. This was how gurumai had wanted to go. In her final moments on earth, she refused to lie prostrate on a stretcher. Even in death—especially in death—she would walk, upright in bold defiance. Hijras might be forced to live in shame, but they went to their graves better than anyone else.
Madhu could feel Bulbul shuddering in the dark, breaking into tears and then regaining composure again, until they stood before the yawning hole that would soon accept their mother. It would be dawn soon. Madhu took one hard look at the person who had shaped her, who had forged her destiny, who had sculpted her body with one stroke, whose hug was more true than that of her real mother, who had made her feel she was worth something when she did not have a friend in the world, who had taught her how to make a man come, and come again, who had fed her rice and dal with her own hands, who had looked so deep into her eyes that Madhu was convinced their bond went back lifetimes, and who had had the courage to tell her parents who she really was. Madhu loved gurumai, and would continue to do so, but not in the way humans experience love. Madhu loved her the way the wind loved the trees. She was visible only because of her.
Madhu moved away and watched gurumai enter the ground.