Oblivious to the irony in the age-old term that means ‘statue’, they call each other ‘murats’. Buried between man and woman, transgenders lie on the edge of society but straddle different worlds.
Deep in Karachi’s oldest quarters, in one of the intricate edifices of the Raj, is a placid settlement of ancient hermaphrodites who are reclusive and shun the profane.
Haji Shehla greets us at the gateway of their building — she wears a white, collared shalwar kameez with a black and white kaffiyeh scarf and leads the way to a wiped down, airy and spacious apartment.
An elegant Haji Saeeda, the sixth heir to their revered ancient guru, Haji Qadri, sits in the centre beside a leaf green window. From Jhansi, her demeanour is not second to the warrior queen’s.
“We are not allowed to reveal ourselves to the masses. Everyone in this building has fixed homes where we are like family and they keep us afloat,” explains the 82-year-old as she chews paan with a silver spittoon by her feet.
Some six old gurus occupy this building, allocated to them 130 years ago. Years later, erstwhile Haji Qadri ensured it was waqf, to become a mosque when this vanishing breed dies out. The place is ‘Wasinda Deira’ for Sindh’s intersexuals.
They know their roots well and with their stately mannerisms, are determined to keep their history alive. “Haji Shehla is from Shahjahanpur and most of us are migrants. In the 16th century we were housekeepers, jesters or guards in Mughal households,” narrates Saeeda with astonishing poise. And just then, a disciple unveils a beautiful portrait where she is a dainty replica of Madame Nurjehan. We gush over her beauty; Saeeda’s eyes glisten with pride.
“We have all performed Haj and spend our time in prayer,” says Shehla. As for finding their way to this destination, she attributes it to a call of the soul.
But this unfamiliar territory is a well of contradictions. “Bindiya Rana is our champion but the third gender slot is useless. We are registered as males, live as women and believe that same sex preference is unnatural. If our NIC says transgender then we can’t do Haj or umrah or have bank accounts,” Shehla reasons as Farah performs a few graceful steps and hums an old classic.
Reminiscences about ceremonies of bringing a newborn into their fold make Saeeda’s smile curl. “Shukr hai ab hum jaise bachay kum hain. Ultrasound sub bataa deta hai.”
The sun begins to sink; they prepare Thursday niaz and diyas and we bow out.
In another sphere reside faces that belie this quaint shroud of dignity. Sapna, a known khawaja sara, shimmers in black and red at the turn into the taut lanes of her colony near Karachi’s Kala Pul. She sashays through pathways with grilled doors to a stairway that leads to an islet of furtive indiscretions and extraordinary brashness.
The real surprise here is the courtyard’s air of catharsis and freedom. Each one is a runaway from their past; a few seek escape from the normal.
Take slender Ibrahim, who, in red palazzos and a tight shirt, is a regular male child of 19 years to his family, but he comes here to be his inner self of a cross-dresser. He is not alone in his flight — newbie Alishba, 20, from Mansehra, has undergone sex change procedures and dolls up in this sanctuary to dance, tend to visitors and perform at private events before she wipes off her reality to return home by night as a delicate boy.
Rimmal is another renegade of convention. A Calcuttan by birth, her family moved to Pakistan seven years ago. Blonde, fair and lean, she can double as a Croatian girl but her voice breaking, despite a sex reassignment operation, is a giveaway.
As they laugh away tales of rejection over 7UP and cigarettes in Sapna’s kitschy room, Kiran Danish, the oldest inhabitant and Sapna’s mother, saunters in.
“I adopted Sapna from her guru in a lavish ceremony. It is like a wedding and the entire community joins in. There was henna, songs and merriment with biryani, qorma and zarda for hundreds of guests and we draped elaborate wraps on her and then she became my daughter,” recalls Kiran, a PR educator with Tahaffuz-i-Sehat for three years.
After wild gyrating to earthy Punjabi beats, they turn to life’s travesties. “We want a place to mourn and celebrate; to be able to take our dead to graves as our NICs say ‘male’; compartments in trains and buses and 2pc job quota in every department to live with honour,” says Kiran. In the end, the journeys of these two worlds will not know convergence. But, be it by design or default, all murats danced to tunes of surrender and acceptance.
Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2014