The question sounds straightforward and the answer simple when A. Revathi asks. But a hijra who is gawked at as a freak every time she steps into public space and encounters brutality every step of the way knows that it is often the simplest questions that elude answers.
Revathi's autobiography, The Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story (Penguin, Rs. 299), is an attempt to pose this question and draw the readers into a discussion by laying bare her experiences of 50-odd years, which often seem to cross the borders of human endurance.
Starting with her childhood in a village near Namakkal in Tamil Nadu, where she was born Doraisamy, the book takes the reader through her long and treacherous emotional and physical journey seeking a life of dignity.
To be able to live as a woman, to escape the constant violence by her family and community, Revathi ran away to Delhi and later to Bombay to join communes of hijras. She eventually found her calling as an activist of the community in Bangalore, where she now works for the organisation Sangama.
Full report here Hindu
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