Close encounters with the 3rd kind

My recent trip to Tirupati (to attend my friend's wedding) was fantastic! We had loads of fun. The wait for THE DARSHAN was an opportunity to get gossiping, and it didn't hurt that i got a wonderful eyeful of his highness Sri Venkatachalapathi. The laddu was definitely a welcome break after the mad rush and the ever famous "jaragandis" (guards yelling at you to move on). A small observation here - the smaller laddu given inside the temple seems to taste better than the larger ones we get outside.

My friend's wedding went off quite well. The bride & groom looked gorgeous. We did what friends usually do at weddings and then headed back to our rooms and got started on this wonderful game of cards known as LITERATURE. "Thank you Srikanth chithappa for teaching it to me. You have no idea the amount of fun i've had with it." The heady combination of a slightly complex game and a few mercurial players ensured that the fun never went away. I think we might have just stopped short of WWIII. Yes, we do get very involved in the sports we play.

The funny thing up until now is, i wonder how many of you tried to map the title of this post to the content so far, and came up flabbergasted. That is because the story starts only from here.

The Sapthagiri Express takes three hours to cover the distance between Tirupati and Chennai. It has several unreserved compartments and just a few reserved ones. Our group consisting of both girls and guys, booked seats in the reserved compartment. We settled down for an evening of Literature and were quite determined to complete atleast one game during our trip. Not that simple. After countless squabbles and tie breakers (involving saa boo three) we finally decided that in the final one hour we would somehow finish the goddamn game. Yet fate often conspires against your most well laid plans in the strangest of ways.

The Hijras came for us. Maybe you know them as Alis. Anyone who has travelled often on the Indian Railways knows about them. They come to you and ask you for money. Depending on whether you give it or not, they bless or curse you and walk away. One of them actually threatened to bite my friend. Poor fellow. He had no choice. Usually they come once, but this time looks like they spread the word about our very "yemaandha sonagiri" group (gullible group). As a result, we kept getting visitors. And yet, "vaazhkaila idhelaam sagajam appa" (these things happen), and so we tried to continue our game. That was when J noticed a woman standing near us and staring at A's gold chain. "A" being a girl, and the guys being the heroes that they are, immediately pushed her to the window seat and made another guy sit in her place. That alerted the enemy. We thought she'd leave. We were wrong. J was the one who first realized that SHE was actually one of THEM. If we were to confront her we'd immediately be on the backfoot because she had backup. And no one messes with THEM. Thus began the game of cat & mouse. She kept moving this way and that. She left and we celebrated, only to dejectedly discover that she was bringing back her other stolen goods to set down on the floor next to us. No way that sexy looking handbag actually belonged to her! She had definitely set her sights on our valuables and seemed quite determined to take something back with her. But our friends were brave. They were not about to let her hurt any maiden. The wait and watch game went on for quite a while. Finally she accepted defeat and got out at the next station. We could literally see the disappointment on her face. PHEW!!! What relief. Alas, we never finished our game.

The incident got me thinking about the third gender. I personally have never met even a single one of them outside the circle of extortion. What drives them to it? It definitely can't be easy being who they are. They are ostracized by not just the society they live in, but in most cases by their own families as well. Probably this is the only way they know to survive. And yet that doesn't justify what they do. They don't receive a proper education and are discriminated against at the workplace,which probably leaves them no other choice. They hurt you, you hurt them back. It leads to a vicious cycle. They do look different, agreed, but that doesn't make them inhuman. Next time you are forced to pay up by a Hijra, it is your right to be righteously indignant, but spare a thought for them as well. They probably never knew life the way you and i know it.