Minorities- and most especially sexual minorities all over the world have been suffering from different types of discrimination. This happens in the larger society and at the hands of the state as well. This book is the first ever book written by an Indian hijra and the author is now a hijra rights activist based in Bnagalore.
The book is a recount of a horror-filled life. Doraisamy was born a male to peasant parents in Tamil Nadu. Early in his childhood, he became aware of the fact that he wasn’t the same as the other boys in his village.
When at school, he would ignore the boys playing and would much rather play with the girls or dressing up in his mothers clothes. His parents hoped that as the years progressed, he would forget his feminine ways but this wasn’t the case. Increasingly, Doraisamy kept feeling that he was a girl trapped in a male body.
Unfortunately, the more “feminine” he behaved and dressed himself, the more his peers at school, siblings, and parents would taunt him. He always felt alone and had no one to talk to about his paint. After a while, he met a group of young men near his village and for the first time in his life, he wasn’t ‘different’ or alone. He wasn’t the only boy who was feminine. This group of young men were responsible for alerting him to the fact that it was quite possible to a boy to become a hijra or a eunuch.
Late in his teens, the constant torments he was undergoing daily became too much to bear and Doraisamy fled. He found himself in Delhi, a world that was different from the little village he came from. Here, he was taken under the wing of a group of hijras and in their household, started observing the different customs and rituals that were specific to them.
