ANDREW WHITEHEAD
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FOOC: The Hijras'
Blessing - 1998

This is a piece I wrote for - and broadcast on - BBC radio's 'From Our Own Correspondent': you can see all my FOOC  pieces here. AW
Picture

THE HIJRAS' BLESSING - c August 1998

One of our Delhi correspondents, Andrew Whitehead, has become the proud father of a baby boy, and according to the Indian custom, eunuchs, known as hijras, came to bestow a blessing on the new-born child.

We knew that the hijras would come. They always do when a baby is born. To offer a blessing, and make away with as much money as they can.

They had been around once before, just after our daughter was born. That time, my wife had bartered with them for an hour or more. They sat on the steps of our flat and refused to leave. Eventually, she gave them 2150 rupees - then worth about $70, I suppose - and they had delivered their benediction and departed.

Now, we had had a son - a much more auspicious event in this deeply patriarchal society. Now your family is complete, we had been told repeatedly by family, neighbours and even the nurses at the maternity home. The hijras would certainly hear of the birth. They would be round to demand their cut in the family's good fortune.

So it was one Saturday morning that the bell rang, and I took a peep through the magic eye in the door to see two women in gaudily coloured saris, more muscular and much less graceful than most Indian women.

That is all I saw of the hijras. Our bargaining strategy had been worked out. Just a glimpse of white skin would have made them more determined to hold out for a high price. So I sat out the encounter out of vision, but within hearing range, while my Indian-born wife engaged in a good half-hour of banter and badinage.

The hijra who did most of the talking was Tulsi. She - and I say she because hijras always use the female gender when talking about themselves - was courteous and dignified, dressed in a mustard and red cotton sari and wearing rather showy metal jewellery. By her side was Babita, bedecked in a sequinned peacock blue sari which didn't say much for her dress sense.

They did not beat around the bush. Give us 11,000 rupees and a piece of gold, they demanded, and we will bless you and your baby boy.

How hijras manage to find out about new-born babies is something of a mystery. The nursing home where our son was born is in a different part of Delhi. We had never taken him to the park or even put him in a pram. 
Their intelligence network is impressive. Each household of hijras - and they live clannishly as social outcasts often do - watches over a certain locality, picks up on gossip in the market, and keeps in contact with domestic cooks and maids.

They are mocked and ridiculed by most Indians. In a status-conscious society, they are about as low as it is possible to be. But they are also feared. No-one wants to annoy a hijra. For a start, their curses are said to be as powerful as their blessings. For another thing, picking a row with a hijra means creating quite a scene - they have raucous voices, and a vulgar vocabulary.

They are reputed sometimes to strengthen their bargaining power by threatening to strip and expose their genitals. Not that Tulsi and Babita resorted to such crudeness. They simply insisted on getting their due.

"Why, my wife asked Tulsi, do you want so much more money to bless a boy than a girl?" "Because everyone in the world wants a boy and no one wants a girl," she replied. A particularly telling comment coming from a hijra - someone who has, after all, crossed the boundary between genders.

Some hijras are hermaphrodites, born with genital abnormalities. Most are brought within the fold as young boys - they are runaways, or simply are befriended by hijras, initiated into their lifestyle, and sometimes at least doctored, castrated, to make them eunuchs.

Hijras have no prospect of paid employment. The live on what their blessings, and their dancing, bring in.
"This is our only livelihood, Tulsi pleaded. "I've got old hijras at home to feed. And we've got to demand a lot because we won't be getting any more money from your family until your son gets married in 20 years time."

Marriages are another auspicious event that attracts hijras - sometimes, indeed they are invited to sing and dance to bring good luck to the couple. Increasingly, hijras are also turning to prostitution to make a living. But Tulsi and Babita seemed, as hijras go, quite respectable.

They were not menacing, in manner. They knew they did not need to be. Turning away a hijra empty-handed is simply not an option. So it was just a matter of agreeing a price. And eventually, the deal was struck. Tulsi and Babita were handed 3150 rupees, and a new sari. A bit of a come down from their original asking price. But still more than a nanny or maid would earn in a month.

They delivered a blessing, and left happy. And if the truth be told, we are happy that they came - for an Indian birth would hardly be complete without the hijras.
​

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    • From Our Own Correspondent >
      • FOOC: Working at Westminster 1990
      • FOOC: Ulster's Talking Shop 1991
      • FOOC: House Rules at Westminster 1992
      • FOOC: India's Red Fort State
      • FOOC: Keeping Kosher in Cuba
      • FOOC: Italy's Gourmand Communists 1992
      • FOOC: Scoundrel Politicians - 1993
      • FOOC: Kashmir's New Puritans 1993
      • FOOC: The Rajah of Bihar 1993
      • FOOC: Bringing the Gospel to Mizoram 1993
      • FOOC: Netaji, India's Lost Leader 1994
      • FOOC: A Self-Respect Wedding 1994
      • FOOC: The Miseries of Manipur 1994
      • FOOC: Village Bangladesh 1994
      • FOOC: Calcutta's Communists Discover Capitalism 1995
      • FOOC: Localism in Ladakh 1995
      • FOOC: Bhutan, not quite Paradise
      • FOOC: Crime and Indian Politics 1995
      • FOOC: Sonia Gandhi 1995
      • FOOC: Sri Lanka's Missing Leaders 1995
      • FOOC: India Votes 1996
      • FOOC: Communism Revisited 1996
      • FOOC: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 1996
      • FOOC: Kerala's Jewish Community 1996
      • FOOC: India's Corruption Scandals 1996
      • FOOC: The Maldives Crowded Capital 1996
      • FOOC: India's Polluted Capital 1996
      • FOOC: Jinnah, Pakistan's Quaid 1997
      • FOOC: Mauritius, an Indian Ocean melting pot
      • FOOC: The Hijras Blessing 1998
      • FOOC: Massacre at Baramulla 2003
      • FOOC: An Old Photo from Kashmir 2007
      • FOOC: Prosperity Driven from Detroit 2008
      • FOOC: An Atheist in MLK's Atlanta2013
      • FOOC: San Francisco's City Lights 2014
      • FOOC: Kashmir Revisited 2014
      • FOOC: By Ferry in Burma 2014
      • FOOC: Toyah's Grave 2017
      • FOOC: The Tibetan Colony in Kashmir 2017
      • FOOC: Stars of Tamil Politics 2018
      • FOOC: Koreans in Chennai 2018
      • FOOC: Epitaph to Empire 2019
      • FOOC: Armenians in India 2019
      • FOOC: Lahore's Bradlaugh Hall 2020
    • What's your favourite political song?
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