Nature, the healer

 

The dilemma. Not every remedy to a health problem will be found in a hospital or clinic, with endless diagnostic efforts, doctors, medicines or surgery. At one point either the medical practitioner will suggest surgery or run out of options. You will hop from one hospital to another across cities, towns and even isolate districts of repute and promise and at the end, you are bound to have a difficult time deciding which to pursue from the myriad of suggestions you will have collected from all the doctors you meet, each with their own belief and plan.

The process of seeking medical treatment is in itself an exhausting one, set aside the major task at hand- your medical issue. Assuming you have a robust support system and care from family, relatives, friends or hired professionals coupled with financial resources, this aspect of your treatment- zeroing in on what is right for you, which hospital and doctor, often makes or breaks your case. The journey will most certainly be far from a cheery one if you come across doctors who capitalise on fear to propose invasive, expensive, or risky procedures. Their words will cause you to have sleepless nights if not rob you of your self- confidence with the likely outcome that you will relent sooner or later.

A wise man once told me, “You can’t afford to be impatient with yourself (be in a hurry to get to the bottom of things just for the sake of not having to deal with the problem), lazy (to explore all your options) or without faith (that there is a solution somewhere out there) if you have a medical issue. The quest for a medical alternative should be an ongoing one till you come across a solution that does you good.

It was in this quest that I discovered naturopathy after most of the conventional alternatives failed to get me beyond a certain level of fitness. Not one to jump with excitement on the prospects of going under the knife after two unpleasant experiences from a Caesarean-section and laparoscopic surgery for gall bladder stones, naturopathy offered relief and respite from mental agony, only concern being the million- dollar question of its effectiveness.

Introduction to nature, the healer. Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara (S.D.M) Yoga and Nature Cure Hospital situated at Pareeka in Udupi district in Karnataka was recommended to me by a distinguished associate of mine who had a similar medical issue as mine several years ago and has recovered completely. The hospital managed by Shanthivana Trust offers nature cure treatment through yoga, special boiled, raw or juice “Sattvic” diet, a plethora of nature cure treatments and therapies including massages with different types of essential oils and herbs, counselling and most importantly, demonstration, education and inspiration to make lifestyle changes and turn to nature. S.D.M Yoga and Nature Cure Hospital works on the belief that human body has the capacity to provide cure for its own ailments through drugless therapies.

                                         Yoga the core treatment program

A trip to Udupi can serve to have double bonus for the naturopathy treatment at S.D.M Yoga and Nature Cure Hospital and for the historic significance of the renown Krishna Temple where according to the legends, the statute of Lord Krishna turned around for a devotee, Kanakadasa, offering his prayers from behind the temple because he was barred from entering due to belonging to a low caste.

We are part of nature and by consuming food that is natural and living a life close to nature to how human beings used to live before modernisation, we gain good health by defeating many ailments which are a result of contemporary life style. Self- healing is the most sustainable healing.

The doctors here are specially educated and trained in Naturopathy which is a system of alternative medicine based on the theory that diseases can be successfully treated or prevented without the use of drugs and surgery by techniques such as control of diet, exercise and massage emphasizing the use of natural agents (air, water and herbs) and physical means (tissue manipulation and electrotherapy). S.D.M College of Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences, Ujire located about 88 km from the hospital and affiliated to Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Karnataka offers undergraduate, post graduate and doctorate studies recognised by Department of AYUSH, Government of India where Bachelor Degree in Naturopathy and Yogic Sciences (BNYS) is a five and half year’s course including one year internship.

A hospital with a difference. The sprawling hospital is spread over 16 acres of land amidst greenery, solitude in the lap of nature providing premier amenities and a sense of calm. It offers different types of accommodation from general ward, corporate section shared by group of ten people, special rooms (non-AC), deluxe rooms (AC and television), cottage and VIP cottage. Patients are taken in for a minimum of ten days, some extending their stay and treatment as per their progress. Admissions are reliant on submission of medical reports on the website and on getting a positive response from the hospital management whereby only those requests are accepted which fall in the purview of the list of diseases it cures like bronchial asthma, nasal allergy, chronic bronchitis, diabetes, thyrotoxicosis, obesity, high and low blood pressure, ischemic heart diseases, migraine, tension, headache, anxiety neurosis, depressive neurosis to name a few.

        Cottage accommodation S.D.M Yoga & Nature Cure Hospital

Nature cure treatment. S.D.M Yoga and Nature Cure Hospital offers natural therapies, yoga therapy, diet therapy, acupuncture, physiotherapy, magnetotherapy and reflexology. Patients are busy from early morning 5.30 am attending yoga sessions which are held centrally for everyone, taking different nature cure treatments in different sections of the hospital through the day till evening 8.30 p.m. Special yoga is taught as per individual’s ailment to release stress, strengthen the body and calm the mind.

                                                   Reclined steam bath

The nature cure treatments include (1) colon hydrotherapy which clears the large intestine, relieves constipation, promotes healthy intestinal bacteria and enhances immune system; (2) massage therapy which is full or partial massage with salt or oil for rejuvenation, improving the blood circulation, reducing muscle stiffness and improving range of joint movements, salt and oil massage gives glow to the skin by removing dead cells and reduces stress; (3) steam bath/sauna bath/reclining steam bath or hydro therapy improves blood circulation, open up sweat pores thus improving skin function, improves fat metabolism and reduces muscle stiffness; (4) cold circular jet stimulates nerves and relieves pain; (5) hip bath improves fat metabolism, blood circulation to abdominal organs and genitals, digestion and reduces appetite; (6) under water massage/immersion bath has an analgesic effect, neutralises gastric secretion, increases fat metabolism, improves blood circulation;(7) douches reduce pain, stimulates spinal nerves, reduces stiffness of muscles; (8) full mud bath gives a cooling effect to the body, improves blood circulation, increases fat metabolism and reduces appetite; (9) Ganji turmeric bath adds glow to the skin and has an anti-allergic effect; (10) face and hair treatments where fruits and vegetables paste are applied to treat skin texture, hair growth, and other skin and hair and scalp related problems. 

                                               Dining hall for boiled diet

Detoxification and diet therapy. The core treatment at S.D.M Yoga and Nature Cure Hospital is centred around diet and detoxication through food based on the theory, “Thy food shall be your medicine. Medicine thy not be your food.” (Hippocrates). The principle is reduced portions, low carbohydrates diet, different varieties of millets, lots of fruits and vegetables, either raw or partially cooked, little or no oil used in cooking and the way the meals are spaced out with the last meal getting over before 7 pm.

Detoxification therapy uses the purifying properties of various fruits, vegetables and herbal juices to clean the body of unwanted and accumulated toxins which are a result of unhealthy lifestyle. The diet therapy aims to bring in dietary modification depending on the patient’s ailment. On an average patients lose 4-5 kgs weight in a 10-days period at S.D.M Hospital as an outcome of the rigorous diet, detoxification and yoga therapy. However, the best practice is how sustainability of the learnings on diet and life style modification is ensured through regular counselling by the doctors, and on discharge as discharge summary card inscriptions.

The three kinds of diet that are served are boiled (BD), raw (RD) and juice diet (JD) depending on what the doctor has allotted to the patient as per the ailment. The types of juices and beverages include ash gourd, bitter gourd, goose berry, lemon with honey and chia seeds, pineapple, carrot, beetroot, cucumber, watermelon, pomegranate, buttermilk, finger millet or ragi ganji, barley water.

Boiled diet meals cooked without or with very little oil serve dishes like coriander rice, vegetable pulao, foxtail millet and peas pulao, millet bisi bele bath or spicy rice, rava idli, spinach/dil leaves/radish/beetroot chapati, vegetable soup, vegetable curry made of pumpkin, chickpeas, green peas, dil leaves and drumstick, fenugreek and tomato, dal, sambar, groundnut chutney, beetroot peanut chutney, with handsome portion of fruits like water melon and papaya, and buttermilk as a side drink to be consumed with the meals. Healthy breakfast is made up of ragi ganji/upma with buttermilk and evening snacks is essentially sprouts and barley water. Raw diet consists of only fruits, sprouts and select vegetables like cucumber, carrot etc. Individuals keen on weight loss often opt for juice diet and consume only juices.

Acupuncture, Physiotherapy (exercise therapy, magnetotherapy and electrotherapy). Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese system of medicine through which various painful conditions and diseases are treated by inserting fine needles into the specific points on the body. This has major impact on balancing the vital energy flow throughout the body. On the other hand, physiotherapy can help to restore movement and function when a person is affected by injury, illness, disability or after surgery and can also help to reduce the risk of injury and illness in the future. The physiotherapists provide useful tips on things that affect our daily lives such as posture, correct way of lifting objects to help prevent injuries, movement, tailored exercises and physical activity to improve our general health and mobility and to strengthen specific parts of our body, and manual therapy using their hands to help relieve pain and stiffness, and to encourage better movement of the body.

Reflexology track

Reflexology. The reflexology track located outdoors within the premises is a circular walking area with four concentric compartments which give pressure to the feet of those who walk on the different materials laid in the track. Walking through the reflexology track takes about 20 minutes; the first and innermost compartment allows patients to walk over hot and cold water, the second compartment allows patients to walk on rough sand, the third compartment is laid with 2- inch sized marble stones with smooth surface while the outermost and forth compartment is laid with sea sand. The exercise is meant to provide natural healing based on the principle that there are reflexes in the feet, hands and ears and their referral areas within zone related areas, which correspond to every part, gland and organ of the body. Through application of pressure on those reflexes, the feet being the primary area, reflexology relieves tension, improves circulation and helps promote the natural function of the related areas of the body and heal and repair on its own.

People from different parts of India and other countries come to S.D.M Yoga and Nature Cure Hospital. The format of treatment such as practising yoga together, eating meals in the dining hall, going for walks, lectures and nature cure therapies together, all foster a sense of community and builds friendship for life among patients. 

For 70 years old Maithri hailing from Mysore, a trip to S.D.M Hospital every year isn’t related to any ailment but a gift she likes to give herself for the detoxification she enjoys there since the last six years. Two middle-aged women from Bengaluru, Shreya and Urvashi recovered fully from Tinnitus which causes ringing in the ears and Vertigo which causes acute giddiness and imbalance. Many people come for weight loss while others come for more serious ailments related to back pain and spine.

Nature Cure Detoxification Tips

·   Bitter gourd juice in the mornings ·   Goose berry juice after lunch ·   Ash gourd juice in the afternoon ·   Barley water in the evening

Ps: This article written by Urmila Chanam was published on the leading newspaper in Manipur, The Sangai Express 7th-9th February 2024.

Unchained

The first bruise on my face

Covered the side of my mouth

Till one day I had a black eye

That needed a veil.

The injuries spotted corners of my body

Till nothing I did could cover it anymore

I stopped meeting people in the eye

It became my habit to hide.

Eight years it took me to listen to my inner voice

And I chose justice that day

But the judge I faced in the court 

Asked me proof of my pain.

What proof does a woman keep who loves her man?

Does she take down dates?

Does she take pictures?

Why has she no witnesses?

Where are the hospital bills?

Had she been just busy, forgiving him?

I found no justice from the law

There was no one in the court to console me

I lay there shattered more by their disbelief 

Than the open skin of my wounds.

That night I looked hard at my sleeping child

Thought deep what I wanted her to be; 

And I chose justice that night

I let go, to close a chapter of our lives.

There were ups and downs

but we had dignity

We were surrounded by unknown faces

But we found safety.

There was a time there was no money to pay for our bus fare

But we hung on for better times

We ate simple food

But our soul was nurtured

We lived in rented homes

But we knew we had each other;

We fell sick, we got broke

But we slept at peace every night.

Most of all, with every knock that life threw our way

We inched a little closer to each other

My daughter and I.

We walked out of this world of man-made laws 

And built our lives ‘brick-by-brick’

We lived among happy people

And finally found our sunshine.

It has been nine years ever since- seems like just yesterday; 

But I have changed,

we have changed

No one can give us justice anymore

For we are not takers,

We have become the givers.

Our home is our temple

And the world our family;

We rise, we soar,

We celebrate our spirit that now lives in us

Unchained.

Written by Urmila Chanam

For One Billion Rising 2017

Bangalore 29 January 2017 Cubbon Park

Pink Pages and the 'Hammam'

A journey through the plight of India’s transgender/eunuch/hijra/ simply the ‘third gender’

Somewhere someplace it’s still just a little before the crack of dawn. And no one else is present for this ‘ceremonial’ ritual other than the ‘dai-ma’ and her assistant. The oil is boiling hot when the knife is dipped in it. A normally born male baby is playing around on the soft bed. The genitals of the baby are slashed in one cruel wave and after dressing the wound, a nail with a string attached is tied to the waist and drilled into the stump, which would with medication and time, begin to look somewhat like a female crotch. A ‘hijra’ is born today.

In a crude surgery (called castration) done in the most unscientific, threatening to the health of the patient and done in the most unhygienic conditions, this operation called ‘nirban’ meaning ‘mukti’, is not permitted by the Indian legal statutes. Therefore, it is done in absolute secrecy by dais or the country nurses whose training is based solely on experience. The whole act is given the color of a religious ritual like the ‘deeksha’ for a better life in the next birth. The act suggests a ‘transition’ of the person from one ‘life’ to another. The breasts develop because the seat of the male hormone- the testicles- has been removed. When the female hormones take over the growth of secondary sexual characters like facial hair is restricted. So also the regular change in voice.

This is India’s reality of the ‘hijra’, the third gender. To modern westerners they are called the ‘eunuch’, the ‘male-to-female transgender’ and ‘effeminate homosexuals’. There is no official count of this special community. While one source claims that there are 2,000,000 of them another source mentions the number at 7,50,5000. Wikipedia explains the eunuch as a person who may have been castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences; or may be a man who is not castrated but who is impotent, celibate or otherwise not inclined to marry and reproduce. These men are women trapped in a man’s body.

After nine months of following them and sixteen days of intensive research I felt I was ready for the field now. My informants I knew would be there in the traffic junction under the Hebbal Flyover, you cannot miss this important landmark if you are entering my city Bangalore from the airport. With a heartbeat which sounded ‘techno’ in genre, I was wondering if I had got my note pad, if my voice recorder was there in my pocket and if I had charged the batteries of my SLR!! I waited patiently trying to merge in the background of hundred bystanders there for half an hour. And then they came.

A group of seven of them dressed in chiffon sarees with indiscreet matching blouses, hair coiled in a high bun, bindi, cheap lipstick on their mouth and ‘alta’ on the soles of their feet.They crossed the wide main road with a grace hard to fathom and quicker than I was prepared for, to tell you honestly. Here they were right in front of me, and my wits seemed to have left me. I forgot the things I had practiced I would remember to tell them before I began our little conversation. So I sighed a little, and told myself, I’d do what my heart tells me to do today. I let go of all the preparations I had thought in my mind before and walked in small deliberate steps towards them.

I would fight discrimination of these special people and the best place to begin, was perhaps, to begin with myself!!

I saw people wind down their car window glasses to shell out coins and cash to them. In fact, I had first seen them here a couple of months back when I had rolled down my windows to doll out a 10-rupee note to one of them. Our eyes had met briefly but I had caught something there which I now define as hopelessness. Since then I had found myself do this every time I came across them. I knew they aren’t ‘beggars’ as we would like to believe. Aren’t beggars people who choose to not work, fiend a handicap-real or unreal, and take money and sympathy from us. In this light, these eunuchs can’t be called beggars at all!!! These are people that the society has not accepted as one among them, people who never get employed because the employers are uncomfortable with their gender, they are people who the world has chosen to not ‘look at’ and now they are left far behind , so behind that they aren’t even there in the ‘rat race’.

I spoke to each one of them. And they didn’t seem to need any goading from my side to begin to talk about their woes and what is it that they really want at the end of the day. Each one of them told me in different words that they just want to be loved and they feel angry that their families pushed them away. Suman, 16, told me, “They should have stood by me rather than following what society tells them.” Shiba, 26, says, “My family got rid of me very early in life but when people in my village came to know I am a transsexual, my sister was unable to find a husband because of this stigma and she recently committed suicide.” In my interaction with them, they spoke about their loneliness and the sense of injustice that they feel facing severe discrimination and harassment everyday from the society and the police.

Hijras have traditionally survived by demanding money from families in return for blessing a newborn child or a newly married couple. They also dance and sing and tell bawdy jokes at weddings and festivals. Many families gave them money because they fear being cursed. But with changing times it has become more and more difficult for hijras to earn their livelihood through this source of income. In big cities where they tend to live, to escape stigma in their hometowns, the advent of high rise flats and gated neighborhoods has reduced their opportunity to collect money. All this has really hurt the community and they are now opting for begging and prostitution. Activists say prejudice towards hijras makes it difficult for them to get mainstream jobs and many feel that sex work is the only alternative. The hijras are not very educated owing to the traumatic life they led within their families, disrupting their education. More and more of them are turning to becoming sex workers.

This community is clearly worried about where they are heading. Sahana, 21, says,"Earlier we were recognized and got some prestige but over the last decade more from our community have got involved in sex work and our reputation has got worse. This has affected our traditional way of earning from weddings and child birth ceremonies."

The most grave threat posing this sizable community is the threat of HIV where infection rates are found to be as high as 86%, as compared to 0.036% in the average population of India. Former Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss advocated legalizing homosexuality in India and campaigned for changing Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which makes homosexuality an unnatural act and illegal. He said that the National AIDS Control Program (NACP III) had a component for transgender under the category abbreviated as MSM or ‘ Men having Sex with Men’ but if section 377 was not changed, then it would interfere with health ministry’s effort to tackle HIV/AIDS epidemic among the transgender as even the doctors treating them could be punished under the law. Kavi, and advisor to UNAIDS mentions that “…the transgender can’t access government services and government can’t access them, so there is a huge barrier in treating them.” Jeffrey O’Malley, 

Director of the United Nations Development Programme on HIV/AIDS, said “Countries protecting homosexuals from discrimination had better records of protecting them from getting infected by the diseases. But unfortunately in India, the rates of new infections among men who have sex with men continue to go up. Until we acknowledge these behaviors and work with people involved with these behaviors, we are not going to halt and reverse the HIV epidemic.”

These HIV positive transgender are then like human time bombs waiting to explode into a bio-disaster if something concrete is not done to help them to be socially, economically and politically ‘included’ into the mainstream.Pushed away from their own families; lonely; vulnerable; with an ambiguous gender; inability to form and maintain relationships; facing harsh discrimination and harassment from the society and the police; socially, economically and politically outcast; left to beg; forced to take up prostitution; inflicted with HIV/AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases- is there anything more left for them to look on?


What’s the saddest part are the assumptions associated with them regarding their identity, integrity, character and intent. You will be stunned when I tell you that eunuchs were actually slave men who were chosen by the kings and rulers to be guardians of women or harem servants and were castrated, usually in order to make them reliable servants. The hijras in the Indian culture have a recorded history of 4000 years. Eunuchs were frequently employed in Imperial palaces by the Mughal rulers as servants for female royalty, and often attained high status positions in the society. Highly valued for their strength, ability to provide protection for ladies’ palaces and trust worthiness, allowed eunuchs to live amongst women with fewer worries. Eunuchs therefore served as messengers, watchmen, attendants and guards for palaces. They even doubled as part of the King’s Court of advisers. Poor families would convert one of their sons into a eunuch to attain this high status. This practice however was banned throughout the Empire in 1668 by Aurangzeb but continued covertly.

Once employed by the sultans, the hijras live today on the fringes of society. The story goes that after a eunuch dies, the others of the group give the dead body 27 beatings with their slippers so that the person is never again born as a eunuch. If you care for these trapped human souls, feel free to lower your car windows each time a hand extends to you for support. It may just be a 10-rupee note for you but you may be saving someone from turning to sex work, HIV or AIDS or from committing suicide.

* Pink pages is India’s National Gay and Lesbian magazine run by a group of writers/activists who stand for the rights of the transgender community hoping to bring about a better informed younger generation. Hammam is a bath house originally constructed as baths/rest houses for truckers cruising the highways, but now are the exclusive domain of the city’s eunuchs who operate out of these dingy structures as sex workers. A typical example of a hammam can be found on Bazaar Street in Ulsoor in Bangalore.

* This article was originally published in the Sangai Express, the leading English daily in Manipur in India 

Link:http://www.thesangaiexpress.com/13924-pink-pages-and-the-hammam/

One month and a lifetime

Happy days can just transform into days of tears and heartache overnight. Small family traditions that you took for granted can just remain as an entry on your diary. Elders, who once guided you, fed you, cried for you and became the roof under which you stood in bad weather, can one day just disappear from your sight.

If only I knew that death would snatch your person from us so suddenly, I would have taken the time and told you,

‘Thank you, Tamo for being my brother in this lifetime.’

As the family gets together to observe the first month since your demise, I let my mind wander to how it used to be.

The day my sister got married to you, it was me and my cousin sister Peto who sat beside your bride in the open car that slowly drove down all the way from Sinjamei to Sagolbandh in Imphal town back in the year 1998. It was November, freezing and in a bid to look good, we didn’t wrap ourselves with a woolen shawl over the fancy traditional costumes we wore. My sister cried like every bride cries on leaving her home and her family and partly because of the fear of going to a new home and a new family.

That had been the first wedding in our family and my first experience to see a sibling start a new life. I was the youngest among three of us and I was not sure what my role was. I only knew our lives were changing.

When we reached your home in Sagolband, half frozen out of winter cold and half thawed by all the crying, I found you among the sea of faces of strangers, relatives and clan. I had met you just about 3-4 times before the wedding. I remember how unsure I was about approaching you but I summed up my courage and asked you to look after my sister. Your reply had been simple but reassuring.

‘I will look after your sister. Don’t worry.’

One November freezing night in an open car

In the 18 years of marriage you looked after my sister so well like nobody could have and everything that was hers, including us- her family.I called you ‘tamo’ and believed you were my brother.

And now we face your death as the biggest personal loss that could ever be. We will never forget the million things you did for us in every possible capacity. We will always remember how deeply you had been involved in our lives. It will take a long time for us to come out of this grief and look back at the memories without pain and sinking. We celebrate the person you were, the life you led, the people you helped and the love you leave behind in us. But for now we struggle in wanting to hang on and knowing we must ‘let go.’We know our lives are changing.

Your body arrived in Tulihal Airport from Delhi in a coffin. There were so many people to receive you, even people we did not know. Just the way you would be there with my sister to receive me every time I came home to Imphal for a holiday.And when I would return, my suitcase would be filled with local food items and jar carrying smoked pork prepared by you especially for me. I would eat that pork little by little to make it last till my next visit home.

Few days ago my sister told me you would say, ‘ Let us give Nanu all the food items that are not available there in Bangalore,  cook special Manipuri dishes that she won’t get to eat there and make her have a good family time’.

Now I see that all the good times I had during my visits to Imphal had not been spontaneous but had been planned lovingly by you and my sister.

I still have the jar with the smoked pork in my refrigerator, the many family pictures you shared not so long ago, the video recordings of my daughter’s birthday, the songs I took from your music archive in my laptop, the many power point presentations on Swach Bharat Mission and government schemes and a view of your ‘last seen’on your WhatsApp number.I can’t believe you are gone.

It seems like just yesterday we had been home, screaming out to our children to not squabble over petty things, deciding what to cook and eat, going for a long drive after dinner in your black Bolero playing loud music, discussing how best to save our money and how we would celebrate Christmas this year. And along with these sweet memories come the ones that cause pain. I remember running besides your stretcher while they were taking you for doing some tests and X-ray. I remember seeing your face had been etched with discomfort and exhaustion from medical treatment, wanting to leave everything and just go home. I knew how you loved ‘being home’. I ran alongside you. I understood how it is to face the unknown and how it helps to have family next to you when that moment comes.

We saw you slip away slowly but you were a fighter till the end. You lived your life and you lived it well. People flocked to your house when they heard about the news. We never knew you touched so many lives till we saw so many come and grieve for you. The house still has your presence only we cannot see you with our human eyes.

As the customary rituals must have begun today in Imphal while I am here in Bangalore observing the first month since your demise, I wish you live happily in the world that you have now gone to.

‘Chatloko, Tamo’.

(Mr. Vivek Khuraijam lived an exemplary life of a husband, father, brother, son, friend, colleague and brother-in-law. An officer of the Central Government in the Department of Field Publicity, he was committed to bring benefit to the poor by linking people to government schemes and provisions. He is survived by his wife and son.)

* This article was originally published on the Imphal Free Press
Link: http://ifp.co.in/page/items/35476/one-month-and-a-lifetime

From Sex Work to Studio: Shanthi Breaks Boundaries

In India every growing child is conditioned by the family to recognize only two genders right from the beginning where the blue baby blanket is reserved for the boys and the pink frock for the girls.

Any signs of an anomaly are met with stiff resistance in a bid to stop it from occurring. In this transgender people live a life of internal commotion, dejection, rejection by family and society, stigma, extreme discrimination and violence. Their sexuality gives rise to issues that go beyond just relationships and identity but percolate down to their livelihood avenues and survival.

Many live their lives pining for a chance to disclose their sexual orientation but instead they live unable to sum up the courage to tell their families, succumb to family pressure, get married on their insisting and even have children. And then there are those who choose to tread a path most dare not take.

The office of Radio Active 90.4, Bengaluru’s first community radio station, is abuzz with activity and, in the recording studio, Shanthi Sonu is getting ready for her show Ghanateya Dudimegaagi Naavu Manushyaru, a series on sexual minorities and sex work. She handles this tough job of hosting a program that challenges the moral policing associated with sex work and advocates for decriminalization of sex work from a human right perspective.

Shanthi is a confident male to female trans person who found success when she embraced her true identity. Her conviction and grit comes from having stood up for her rights even at the face of stiff family opposition and living life trans. Her testimony is one that makes people stand up, take notice and believe in listening to your heart.

She recalls how reading out a poem she had written on the life of a trans person in a public event had made Pinky Chandran, Director of Radio Active notice her. She adds smilingly, ‘I was offered the job of RJ at Radio Active the same day after the event. My life changed in a moment.’

She recalls how she never knew that talking about the pitiful life she had led as a trans person, of being completely rejected by the society and even by her biological parents would get her success.

There is empowerment in disclosure; in being able to say who we are to the world and, most importantly, to ourselves.

Shanthi Sonu, 34, radio presenter, Bengaluru, India

For Shanthi it was not less than a giant leap to be here from the life she had led as a sex worker who also engaged in begging side by side as most trans people do to support themselves in Bengaluru, one of the fastest growing cities in India.

Trans people who get into sex work live a difficult life marred with danger. The police see them as criminals and beat or harass and arrest them. They are not safe on the streets where they solicit clients at night, are raped and kidnapped by goons and made to indulge in unprotected sex forcibly. The goons take their money and their mobiles and they abuse them physically as well as verbally. In addition, they bear the burden of catching infections like STIs and deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS.

Shanthi’s life has changed dramatically. She is far placed from the many dangerous situations sex work brings and now works in a safe and friendly atmosphere. Radio Active changed her life in a moment.

Shanthi found self- respect, contentment, success and fame at the end of the tunnel. Today the same brother who used to beat her loves her a lot and her parents who once locked her up and isolated her from others are coming back to her.

For the first time, India’s census counted the trans population and there is finally an official number that stands at 490,000 transgender people in a country of 1.2 billion. While trans activists estimate the number to be six to seven times higher, they are thrilled that such a large number of people identified themselves as belonging to the third gender. With education and raising awareness, maybe a day will come when a new colour will be weaved into the baby blanket for the special newborn and trans people will get to complete school without interruption.

Ps: This article was originally published on The Guardian in March 2016. Shanthi Sonu, 38, radio jockey, mural artist and poet lives and works in Bengaluru, India. This picture shows me and Shanthi Sonu in 2016.

Why they give up living?

I sat there uncomfortable in the front seat. The rape victim giving her testimony in front of 100 odd people in that office auditorium of an NGO was an experience I was not prepared to deal with. I wasn’t comfortable sharing the same space with a girl who had seen such loss, tried to come out of it only to discover there was no such thing as ‘escape’ from rape. I wasn’t joyful that here in front of me was a girl whose life had been snatched away from her and when she took it back, she only found it was of no good anymore. I was uncomfortable because I knew deep inside that we were all hearing but none of us could sense her loss, not even me. It felt awkward to be hearing all this, as if I was in some body else’s bedroom seeing and hearing things I had no right to hear. It was a personal moment -too private to discuss.

The workshop had been organized under the theme of ‘Trafficking of Woman and Child” and a host of NGOs, International Development Bodies, state government Woman Commission members had come to benefit out of it. There were talks given by eminent social workers who had dedicated their lives to rescue and rehabilitate rape victims and trafficked women and children. It all revolved around how women were being raped because they were ignorant and lived in a male dominated society and how women were being trafficked around the world. But it was the testimony of this petite 15- year- old Bangladeshi girl that left me to think hard and think long.

She said when she was raped she was just 10.Her mother, a laborer ,used to call her ‘Rani’ at home , her mother’s angel, her queen. She’d often say one day she would get Rani married off to a prince. Rani would chuckle to herself happy in her life. Rani grew up in her parent’s love in a house where she was the only child. She thought she was special. Her father used to work in a factory but after an accident where he had lost the use of his hands, he was mostly at home. Then one day four men from the village raped her when she was playing alone in the field. She gave an account of how they left her to die after raping her. “I woke up with a bruised body, a broken face and blood smeared all over my body only to discover I was still alive! A part of me was happy that now I could just run home to the arms of my mother and tell her that Rani had escaped and survived, and made it back home. A part of me wanted to die as I felt my childhood had been snatched away from me without my consent. Mixed emotioned -fear, shame, sorrow, grief, happiness, hopeful, I picked up my clothes to walk back home.”

I could see tears threatening to flow from her eyes as she said, “Years later when I failed in everything I did in my life and in every relation I cared for and wanted desperately for it to work out, I wished they (the rapists)had killed me that day in the field- at least I would die just once!!. I escaped them, I escaped death once, only to be tormented and die each day for the remaining days of my life. My parents did all they could do to protect me but the society didn’t allow them to remain parents to me for much long. The society couldn’t find the culprits, so they found me and punished me instead, because I reminded them of what had happened and their total failure to do anything to punish the wrong doers. And so they punished the wronged!”

She told how her mother was not given work in the brick factory where she worked as a ‘hazira’ because the other women laborers would complain their husbands didn’t like them working with a raped girl’s mother! Slowly she wasn’t able to find work in her village. She would have to search for one in the neighboring village. Poverty struck her happy family and bad fortune descended in to their lives. “After one year, a wealthy man and woman came to our village and said they were hiring women for their factory in Delhi and they would teach them how to sew and make beautiful clothes and earn their own livelihood. “So off went Rani as the first to be hired from the village, this time again, without her consent. Her mother cajoled her that it was for the good of everyone. Rani would now see India in real and not through the several Hindi movies they so adored! This trick worked and little Rani, 11 years old, set out with a ‘potli’ carefully packed by her mother for a future which had to be better than what she had now in a poverty stricken home in the interiors of Bangladesh. Or so she was made to think.

Every year hundreds of girls as young as ten are trafficked from Bangladesh to India on the pretext of giving them jobs in Delhi or Kolkatta. Poor parents see this as a blessing and being uneducated they have little or no idea of what happened to their daughters and by the time, they get to know, its way too late, for the girls to return home and for the parents to want to have their daughters back. Poverty and lack of education are the best ground for traffickers to thrive and prosper. Rani was one such girl who was sold off for Rs.10,000 to a brothel in old Delhi. And she was told by the man who brought her from her village that there had been a slight change in the plan. A suitor had asked to marry her so he thought it was best she get married to him!! She was so young and naïve she took her mother’s parting words literally. She had told Rani, “From today this man is like your father. Obey him. He has got your best interests in mind.”

Rani became a sex worker on the streets of Chandni Chowk in Delhi at a tender age of twelve when other girls were still playing with their dolls in the protected environment of their father’s courtyard. Rani would be dressed in the attire of a child bride each morning with little idea that it wasn’t’ normal to have five different grooms everyday. She didn’t feel anything amiss as the man she was wed to, would turn up at her door each night to ask if she was happy and that she was a dutiful wife, obeying his wishes. In the brothel where she lived she wasn’t allowed to talk much to the other girls and anyway, all other girls were much older. Ignorance is bliss, they say, so it was for Rani till one day she went out with the ‘amma’ of the brothel to buy bangles from the bazaar. While amma was busy bargaining about the prices, Rani was audience to an advertisement in the radio which said girls from the neighboring country of Bangladesh were being sold off in Delhi and the Government of Bangladesh was taking matters with an iron hand. Rani got a chill up her spine as for the past few weeks girls her age at the brothel had been discussing that what had happened with them was not normal and that they had been cheated, sold off and exploited but Rani kept on telling herself that her husband wouldn’t want anything bad for her. After all he was her husband!!!! The radio programme announced telephone numbers of NGOs operating in the country who rescued such unfortunate women. Rani managed to write down one telephone number and hid it in her purse. She didn’t know when she would use it and if she would muster the courage to ever use it. For weeks Rani tried to forget about what she had heard in that bangle shop. For days she didn’t look to open the chit of paper with the telephone number. But one night, one of the girls called ‘Chandni’ was beaten up by amma and two men who she knew were guards for not agreeing to them. Someone whispered Chandni had been sold off to an old ‘mantri’ and was now being taken to Allahabad. It was then Rani resolved it was time to use that telephone number tucked off in the deep recesses of her purse.

In the cramped office chamber of Impulse, an NGO which had earned a name for rehabilitation and rescue of trafficked women and children, there was only one person still working at ten at night. Hasina Kharbhih, was still working on a report that she needed to take with her to the International Conference for Women and Child Development in Bangkok. She was swearing under her breath impatient with herself. For the fourth time in the evening Rahul had called to remind her that today was not a day to work late. It was their 6th marriage anniversary and he demanded she be home in an hour to show her face to guests who had long ago finished the celebration dinner! She was just wrapping up when the phone at her desk rang. At first Hasina tried to ignore it but when the ring persisted, she noticed it appeared like a long distance call. She told herself that their partner NGOs shouldn’t be calling this late even if they knew she would be working late today. When the phone rang again she grabbed it in the first ring out of instinct .At first she could hardly make out from the low voice that she strained to hear, “Kya aap meri maddat kar sakte ho (Can you help me)?” Hasina had worked her entire life rescuing trafficked women and experience told her not to ask who the caller was. So she told what she always told every caller reaching out for help, “You are calling the right person. I will take you out from there and you will not have to fear those who sold you off again. You can trust me. My name is Hasina Kharbhih.”

Rani was calling from the telephone at Amma’s room while she was out and she knew this was her only chance to escape. She was so frightened she couldn’t tell much but she remembered to tell her name was Rani, she hailed from a small village called Darsha in the border of Bangaldesh and now she lived in a yellow colored three storied building in Chandni Chowk in old Delhi with 27 other girls. Just when she was about to tell more she could hear some sound coming from the corridor and she was forced to hang up.

Hasina didn’t return home that night. Rahul knew by now that for Hasina a call for help meant she had to rescue the caller before she ate, drank or slept. He knew her for 10 years now. He had fallen in love with her for the same reason. Hasina Kharbhih became a UN Ambassador for youth when she was just 24.She was awarded the Ashoka medal for her selfless contribution to rescue trafficked women disregarding her own safety sometimes. She founded the NGO Impulse Network–a network which operated through its partner NGOs in all the states of the country.

It took 2 months for Hasina to track that call to the probable location in the capital. She used all that she had- the police, the partner NGOs in the 4 states of Meghalaya, Assam, West Bengal and Delhi(route of trafficking into the country), the state legal authorities and the media. To get a court order to raid that brothel in the capital took more than just muscle power. It took persuasion, persistence and grit, all of which Hasina didn’t lack. Hasina was part of the raid on the brothel in Chandni Chowk. From the database of girls missing from home or who had migrated for work she found one Rani who had left her village some 2 years ago. Hasina was sure she was the same girl she had spoken to because the names of the village matched. With the police, the magistrate and the media Hasina was part of the raid on the brothel in Chadni Chowk. After gunshots and scuffle that lasted 20 minutes, when the police finally broke open the front door of the building, everyone appeared to have fled from the sight. Hasina peered inside almost disappointed but when she walked further in, she found a small girl hiding partially behind the couch. Hasina went near her slowly and extended her hand and said, “ Rani, I am Hasina and I am here to free you.”