The Rise of Eunuchs in Hindi Films
Hands clapping, gruff voices singing in unison, they raid the 11.25 am local from Churchgate to Borivli. A strong, hairy arm stretches out from under the pallu of a saree for the mandatory alms. The ladies look away, partly in disgust, partly in fear. Disgust because they are dirty, poor and ugly. Fear because they are born different. They are the outsiders who live in ghettoes amongst their own, ekeing out a miserable existence by begging, selling their bodies and exortion. In Hindi films they’re the brunt of crude jokes in song sequences (remember Amitabh Bachchan’s Mere angne mein number in Lawaaris?). Eariler new mothers would call them to sing bawdy songs but with the rising decibels of MTV they’ve lost this only respectable means of earning. Today aerobics to trim the extra-cellulite is more important than having hijras doing a dance number on the street in front of their apartment blocks. Even at weddings they are forgotten in the cacophony of stereophonic CDs. The eunuchs may well have become sordid history had it not been for a gutsy young actress who had been handed a production company by her father and uncle on her 21st birthday. Pooja Bhatt whose papa Mahesh Bhatt had once written a sensitive article on Tiku, a kind-hearted eunuch he had run into in the city’s sordid depth, decided that Tiku would be the “hero” of her first production.
One evening last November the walls of the city were plastered with posters in brilliant earthy colours, Tamanna was ready and suddenly these hereto oft-ignored hermaphrodites find themselves centre-stage. Their day has finally come.
In mainstream cinema the hijras have so far existed more as clown than humans with a heart. Actors, mainly comedians, would cross-dress with deliberate crudity so as not to be mistaken for a woman but taken for a hijra in an attempt to evoke laughter. Fortunately, this brand of gross humour did not go down well even with the front benchers and therefore, the mimicking of a hijra died a slow death.
Till Mehmood turned the tide using real eunuchs for a longish song-n-dance number in his blockbuster Kunwara Baap. Perhaps, for the first time ever, hijras were happy to be a part of mainstream cinema, never mind if it was just one loud song in a lengthy film. The song became a hit and it was sung at college picnics and children’s birthdays to mimic the hijra community. And the hijras were back to watching films that made fun of them. Even superstar Amitabh Bachchan was guilty of the crime. Prakash Mehra, the director of Laawaris put in extra effort to make the Big B look as ugly, as bizarre and as horrific as possible in the Mere angne mein number, making capital of the Bachchan’s imposing height. From the star’s exaggerated gestures, make-up, get-up and coy demeanour it was clear that he was not trying to act like a woman but he was actually mimicking a hijra. The scene hardly made for great visuals but it went on to top the charts and became a must at all Bachchan concerts.
The hijra community is a close-knit one, their ways and habitat kept a closely guarded secret from even their closest neighbours. Only the odd beggar who sleeps on the pavement across the road from a hijra colony envy their deviant existence. They care little for social acceptance but are sensitive to ridicule by ‘seedha’ people. Many of them have turned to crime and prostitution. But none of these facets have been explored by our film-makers. Mani Ratnam’s Bombay was the first film which showed that an eunuch could be tender too. In a touching scene one of these often-ridiculed souls offers shelter to the twins when they’re seperated from their mother (Manisha Koirala) with ariot suddenly erupts. This is one human being who’s not bothered about the community of the kids. Mani Ratnam has made his point: a hijra can be a good human being too if we let him.
Living in a society intolerant of deviant behaviour, hijras look upon themselves as cursed for the sins of their past life. There is no definite count of the hijra population in India. Estimates range between 1,00,000 to over one million. Though mostly gay or transvestite, hijras believe they are sexless, neither male nor female. Most of them lead a life of penitence and austerity, though not necessarily of abstinence and practice bizarre rituals to win from God their one great wish: to be born a man or a woman in their next life. Once employed by sultans to guard their harems, these eunuchs or castrated males live today on the fringes of society, ostracised but occasionally venerated for their supposedly magical powers. No director has explored the possibility of making a feature film focussing on this collective and cloistered community till the Bhatts came on the scene.
A few years ago a Mahesh Bhatt film, Sadak shot against the backdrop of a brothel, had Sadashiv Amrapurkar playing Maharani, an eunuch. The portrayal fetched him the coveted Filmfare Award. But the hijra in Sadak comes across as a vile, inhuman specimen and the film and the character of Maharani did little to raise the social acceptance of the hijra community.
But Tamanna comes across like a whiplash on our faces. Tiku, the hijra picked out of real life and performed brilliantly by Paresh Rawal, repeatedly underscores the fact that often, people born genetically as men, may be physical embodiments of manhood but in their hearts and their souls, they are sexless, they are the real hermaphrodites. Tiku is more of a man than all the men put together in the film. The hijras in the film make fun of him because he avoids them, thinking that by living with ordinary people he can forget the gender-deviation of his existence. Later, as he finds his income as a make-up man in films dwindling, he is forced to put in his lot with the singing-dancing hijras to pay for the education of his ‘daughter’. Once they accept him into their fold, the whole community of hijras build up a solid wall of resistance and rebellion, of violent protest when Tamanna is kidnapped and is likely to be killed by her bilogical father. Susan Hema, an associate of the All-India Eunuchs’ Welfare Association formed in 1993-94, says that the organisation aims at raising the lot of the hijras in the country. Ruth Lor Malloy, a Chinese Canadian who was in Mumbai recently, helped publish a 32-page booklet on hijras authored by Meena Balaji and other eunuchs of India. The book is called Hijras: Who We Are. Films like Tamanna which celebrates the solidarity and the loving hearts of the hijras symbolised in the character of Tiku, can bring the community greater respect than any organisation or book. One looks forward to Kalpana Lajmi’s forthcoming film, Darmiyaan, which tells the story of Tiku all over again. But this time, we see him as a much younger man, growing up from childhood to maturity and delves deep into his relationship with his mother (played by Kiron Kher) who was a reigning actress of the ’40s.
Next time I get on to the 11.25 am local from Churchgate to Borivli, perhaps the women won’t look away when a hijra stretches out a hairy arm. Maybe they will reach out and take it.
source http://www.screenindia.com/old/aug08/films2.htm
