BHAVIKA -- My first transgender experience
I despise transgenders. Yes.... I just admitted it. I just can't stand them. I have always hated them all throughout my life. More than hate, its a sort of nauseous feeling I have towards them every time I see one. Its probably a hereditary thing. My dad hates transgenders and is terrified of them. My grandfather despises them too..... but since he was an asshole, I am pretty much sure he had gone to Bangkok at some point of time, got wasted and some lady boy must have banged his skinny ass. Anyways, I ll write about him some day after he's dead or else he' ll sue my ass for defamation. However, I always make it a point that I always steer away from them. My friends Raisa George Uma Vasudevan and Aswathy Krishnan strongly oppose my view on transgenders and they claim that I am racist. But that's not entirely true, I do like transgender people as long as I don't know that they are one. So basically it's like eating soya bean and chappatti thinking its non-veg till you realize that its veg (viewpoint courtesy: Sabari C P). Anyways, Saturday nights are always boring if all your friends have headed back to their hometown. This weekend was no different. It was just me and Sabari C P hanging around in a coffee shop in Kochi and bitching about all our colleagues. After dropping Sabari C P home.... I decided to call it a night and started heading home.
On the way, I see a huge tussle going on in MG Road. Two guys on a bike and another guy on another bike and one fellow grabbing and dragging a woman.... atleast it did look like a woman at first. Apparently, it was a transgender. The guy who was dragging her forcefully looked like an offspring of Rapper Snoop Dog and an Asian Palm Civet (marapatti in short!! I was just trying to be Prithviraj for a sec!!!) Clearly, these guys were trying to drag him/her into an alley and rape him/her. Despite the fact, I totally despise these people, I stopped the car and honked the horn as loud as I could. Hearing this, two guys on the bike fled the scene. However, Mr. Marapatti was clinging on to him/her determined to violate him/her. I said "What the hell is going on mister??" (actually what i said was "എന്ത് മൈരാടാ കാണിക്കുന്നത് കുണ്ണേ!!!") The transgender person ran towards the car. I told him/her to get in. That's when I realized that Mr. Marapatti had a pen knife or something and obviously he was stoned too. I couldn't believe it. I was putting my life on the line for a transgender. If I were to die tonight, I could totally see tommorow's new paper headline -
HIGH COURT ADVOCATE FOUND DEAD WITH A TRANSGENDER SEX WORK UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!
Then again that's fucked media and their TRPs. By now Mr. Marapatti's friend was panicking and started screaming to get the hell outta the place. But Mr. Marapatti was not going to let go of his prey without a fight. He tried to grab her/him but managed to escape. By now, he grabbed his/her fone and took off. The transgender was visibly very shaken up. I couldn't possibly leave her/him there. I asked the transgender reluctantly to get in the car and I ll drop her/him some place. On the way back, the transgender was weeping helplessly. Apparently, this is the second time they have attacked her this week. She happens to be a sex worker and Mr. Marapatti and his friends wanted to have a go with her TOGETHER for the price of one customer!!! (Yes!! no one can beat us malayalees when it comes to bargaining!!!) She said she couldnt do it and these guys were trying to kidnap her at the endpoint of a knife. It seems last week these guys did this to another friend of hers and that friend has an asshole now big enough to store radioactive plutonium. I asked her if I should take her to the cops. She said "Cops wont help us. They will ridicule us or just tell us to get lost." I asked her if I should drop her some place. She said her friends would be near south railway station. I drive to south railway station and asked if she needed any money or help. She said she ll be alright but clearly the terror of almost getting raped was still evident in her eyes. I asked her "Why don't she do something else for a living?" She smiled sarcastically. She and I both knew the answer to that. I wished her good night and asked her name..... She smiled with twinkle in her eye said its Bhavika. It was prolly the first time anyone ever did something for her without in exchange for sexual favours. She asked me my name. I was gonna say my name "My name is .....err..." then once again my transgender phobia kicked in and I said my name is "Adv Sabari C P" (don't ask why I did that!!). She said "Thanx Sabari chetta!!" and I drove off. I had another coffee and headed back through MG Road and caught a glimpse of her once again standing at the bus station looking to make a buck or two for her livelihood before dawn. It was a sad and helpless sight. I wont say my outlook towards transgenders has changed. But I ll tell you one thing. After last night's incident, I just realized that my generation of perverts have totally lost it. I have heard my female friends keep telling me that its very unsafe to go out in the night after 10 PM. Fuck, today transgender people are unsafe, tomorrow even men will not be safe from men in the street.
I was telling this to another colleague about this incident over lunch and the first thing he asks me "അളിയാ ചരക്ക് ആയിരുന്നോ? വല്ലതും നടന്നോ?" (meaning "Was she hot? Did you get to do something with her????) I looked at him painfully and regretfully and sympathized with his father for wasting his ATP molecules and DNA to create someone like this. I thought I was racist moron for having aversion towards transgender people, but seeing people like my colleague and Mr. Marapatti, I have completely lost faith in humanity.
