Eunuchs have been much written about. But look beyond their asexual definition, and you will find a world of complex relationships. Of eunuchs marrying men, women, sometimes both, adopting children, even letting their husbands bring a "normal" second wife home to keep the family going. It's a world where love is gender-blind. 

By Kumar Sanjoy Singh

It is a moment of absolute ordinariness. Her hands bangled, her nose ringed, the woman has poise. Her name is Chiria and she stands besides her husband Surendra, a Delhi police officer. He looks protective, she demure, an everyday picture of marriage in India. Except, the picture lies. The moment is extraordinary, for it captures a most uncommon union: between man and eunuch.

Chiria was once Mohammed Aslam. He does not crave your pity, nor desire pious speeches about the "injustices of nature". He is a hijra by choice, led by his heart to mutate his gender. "I myself got rid of my jhanjat (genitalia)," he explains, "and got married to my beloved." Troubled by his confused sexuality, Aslam had fled from his native Rampur to live amidst a group of Delhi eunuchs. He had found both an identity and a livelihood, but it was a life incomplete -- somewhere within him nestled the idea of a ghar and gharwala. So Aslam found Surendra, fell in love, removed his male genitalia and got married.

Aslam is not unique. india today discovered no less than 19 eunuchs across Delhi, all locked in relationships they claim as marriage. Astonishingly, who is what among the eunuchs is a case of gender guessing. Many of them do not clinically fit the eunuch's definition, having retained their genitalia. Yet their embrace of this cult is real: what the scalpel hasn't done mascara, earrings and salwar kameez have. Yet whatever their sexual status, it does not preclude the need for a home, a relationship and indeed even a family. In the hijras' universe, love and longing are natural too.

To enter the eunuch's home is to be struck by its normalcy. He is the traditional woman, performer of every domestic duty. He cooks, washes, sews. As Chiria says, "Serving my khavind (husband) is my religious duty." Peer behind the facade and oddity unveils itself. Here in these homes convention lives, but so does the bizarre. Some eunuchs get married -- a simple case of an affidavit, two witnesses and a notary -- and adopt children; some allow their husbands to bring home a second wife to breed a family; and some -- mostly those with sexual organs -- keep husbands in the city and wives and families back in the village.

It is a world of staggering complexities. Fourteen years ago, Mohammed Waseem from Amroha was transformed -- by lipstick not knife -- into Seema. Another world opened. She got her marriage to Mohammed Tehsil "registered" this year, but imposed an interesting condition. Tehsil may marry another woman, live with her four days a week, but "should she die, he may not marry another". Tehsil, predictably, reacts like a wounded paramour. "That second wife is for children but my love for Seema will not be shared at any cost. In fact, I will keep both wives under one roof and develop a common understanding." It is evidently the right thing to say, for Seema, leaning coquettishly on his shoulder, says: "I know he will never leave; it's just that I want everything in black and white."

These claims of love, these suggestions of a legalised union do not sit well with all eunuchs. Says Vijay-turned-Vijeta: "This is a farce. Are those papers signed by any judge?" Some might whisper it is the voice of a jilted eunuch -- after 18 years of "conjugal bliss", his man Intikhab Querishi left him for a woman. Still, his grumbling strikes a chord. The affidavits would crumble under the glare of a law that views sodomy as a crime. For the eunuch though, giria banana or getting a man to live with, sometimes for 30 years, cannot find any other definition except marriage.

The law would most certainly frown at Shamim. For 14 years, he wore lipstick and saris, sang badhaiyana outside the homes of families with new-born babies, married a man Prabhash, but remained himself a man, posing as a eunuch. If he had found peace by embracing the feminine instincts activated within him, what he did next challenged comprehension. In 1995, he asked his neighbour for his daughter's hand in marriage; inexplicably the rishta was approved. Now a father and possessor of a man's wardrobe, the journey from man to hijra to man seemed complete. It is not. The nameplate on Shamim's door tells of a story without end: it still reads Prabhash + Shamim.

If such stories offer an opportunity to scoff at society's freaks, there is an underlying sadness to these tales as well. Today, Neelopher (another man living as a eunuch) talks animatedly about whether his pregnant wife Babli will have a son or daughter. She lives in Mathura, he in Delhi with his man Mehtab. It is almost a schizophrenic existence. Nail polish on, mehndi streaked, Neelopher, says Mehtab, "keeps me happy, like any obedient wife". Except, now and then Neelopher takes out the nail polish remover from the cupboard, changes his hairstyle, packs a Safari suitcase full of trousers and shirts and heads towards Mathura. From Delhi's isbt bus stand onwards he is Idris Querishi.

Idris/Neelopher is a homosexual but also a eunuch by circumstance. Beaten up by his father, he integrated himself into a eunuch community in 1986, but five years later was fed up and "dared to go home". He found his mother dead, his father ill, and four sisters (one disabled) and two brothers (both disabled) starving. "To be a eunuch was the only art I had ever learnt," he says, "and it was the only means of extending support to my family." The trousers were packed away, the nail polish was pulled out and Neelopher reappeared. Today, two sisters are married and Rs 75,000 has been spent on the disabled sister. "After the marriage of my other two sisters, I will leave this dubious life," he promises. Mehtab shifts uneasily. Once he burnt himself to pressure Neelophar to stay with him. Can Idris ever get away?

Some never want to get away, being able to strike just the right balance. Sultana has lived with her giria Kailash since 1960; she does not mind that Kailash married again and fathered five children because they come and play with her. Manju's giria Chottelal speaks of a similar contentment. "Manju lives with me here, my wife is in Shahjahanpur and whenever they want they go to each other's place. There is no problem bhai saheb." Enmeshed in a relationship that is stunning in its normality, Deepa would echo those words. Her giria Raju refused to marry another girl, solving the problem of a child by adopting one from a widow with six children. This tale has a happy end: in Raju's home, his parents call Deepa bahu.

It is a contentment that is often fragile. For, every day the hijra and the giria must walk the streets of ridicule. Society offers only scorn. For them, the giria is a sexual deviant. As Hazi Samad, who lives on the fringes of a eunuch colony, says, "Giria means he who has fallen. Fallen from religion and morality. It is the worst sin, according to Islam." The marriages of odd convenience too attract criticism. Says another local: "This hijra-giria game spoils two families."

In the hijras' cultish world of alternative sexuality and bewildering romances,all criticism is shrugged off. It is the only relationship they know. When Aslam looks in the mirror, he only sees Chiria; and Chiria has eyes only for her husband, Surendra. It is bizarre, but it is a union nonetheless. Love in the world of the eunuch is gender-blind.

(Some names have been changed to protect identities)

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