“Mubarak ho, lag raha he pehla bachcha ladka hua hai’, the highly respected dowagers of the neighborhood exclaimed. Little did I know at that time the fake approval of the society will not last forever for our family, unlike others.
A 3-years old Ritesh loved to play Ghar-ghar the typical childhood game featuring a typical everyday family life. It was not unconventional to dress the only boy of the home as a girl by older cousins. But the overwhelming fact is that unlike many of the boys Ritesh loved to dress up as a girl. He didn’t think of himself as anything different than the other girls of the family.
His androgynous looks were not much of a trouble in childhood.’ Baccha h, bare hote hote sab thik ho jai ga’, was the decision of the matriarch of their family. Despite a very casual approach of his family members, Ritesh found himself in a difficult situation while acquiring playmates. The girls shunned him as a boy while the boys refused to play with him. But mostly he befriended a few neighborhood girls and played with them.
Playing silly games with girls in the neighborhood didn’t continue after the age of 12. His body developed in a very different fashion than other children. He heard other people talked behind him and his classmates started to tease him as a freak.
He finally decided that it was about time he broached the topic with his parents. Denial was the worst kind of lie and he found himself facing that with his parents. They assured him it was some kind of hormonal imbalance or the other. But to give him a peace of mind they decided to visit a reputed sexologist to affirm the facts.
On his way to the Doctor on the train, he saw hijras begging and forcing people to give them money. They were quite ruthless but he understood that it is the society which made them like this. He gave another look at them and understood that maybe he was also like them. He was immediately repulsed by the mere thought and tried the action of denial again.
The Doctor confirmed his worst fears explaining that he is actually a trans woman. A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. The Doctor suggested
hormone replacement therapy and sometimes sex reassignment surgery, which can bring immense relief and even resolve gender dysphoria entirely. His parents were mute as a result of the shock. The Doctor explained the process of sex reassignment surgery thoroughly and advise them it is easier done when the patient is younger.
He couldn’t meet his parents eyes after the meeting wrapped up. The trio went home in incompatible silence.
That night a fearsome quarrel broke out between parents. His father was completely adamant at giving him to the hijra community otherwise the society will shun them if they do not do so and he is totally reluctant to live with a freak of a son. His mother suggested in a few years he will be normal after the surgery is completed. The boy curled himself deeper into his pillows hoping it would prevent him from hearing unappetizing remarks from his own creators as the battle raged on the other side of the door.
The next day his mother said sadly that his father has left in midnight. Ritesh listened silently to his grieving mother who was torn between her husband or her offspring all the while grieving his own sexuality. He never saw his father again.
His mother decided to take matters into her own hands. She told Ritesh that it will take her about 3 years to collect the money to perform SRS and hormonal therapy in her teacher’s income. Ritesh decided to listen to his mother’s advice. He did some internet search himself and found out about some famous trans women in the world. It seemed he was not the only person who has doomed.
While the negativities that surround transgenders alarmed him to a great extent. The sex trade and exploitation, cruel and dangerous castrations, being cast out and constant humiliation. He read about a Rajesh Yadav, slim with sharp cheekbones, said she had been gang-raped four times in less than one year, beaten with a brick and nearly thrown out of a moving vehicle because of her sexuality. “I would beg them to leave me every time, but they would beat me and use violence against me and then rape me,” said Ms. Yadav, 25, who identifies as a gay cross-dresser and prefers female pronouns. The alarming violence faced by the transgender people mentally prepared him to face his oncoming surgery.
When he went under the surgery knife after those years despite complications and difficulties Ritesh actually didn’t care what the outcome will actually be. He was mentally in a coma if not physically.
The next few years were very tough. The many stages of the SRS and the hormonal therapy wreaked havoc in his body and mind. It was difficult to believe that he was actually she after such a long struggle, Dr. Ritisha is now an esteemed neurosurgeon. She thanked God every day for her mother who unlike her father never thought to give her up to the hijra community to beg in trains and roads. She now lives with a family of her own with 2 children from surrogacy. The uninterrupted life that she now enjoys took a very long and hard struggle to enjoy.
“Why are we invisible?” she asked. “Because we have made ourselves invisible? Or have we been made invisible?” She is an eminent campaigner for the LGBT community and is no longer invisible and vows to make India a safer and peaceful place for them.
