HAMAZOR - ISSUE 3 2012 intensively my final exam (public concert) to Simran Shaikh’s story obtain my Diploma of Virtuosity in the coming months. by anahita mukherji

I also was able during this time, to witness he word family brings a tinge of the progresses made by the other students: sadness to Simran Shaikh’s voice. in four years, all have progressed, albeit at TWhen Simran, an attractive, strapping their own pace and capacities, and most member of the Hijra community in New importantly, all have acquired greater Delhi, sees fellow hijras living with their musical knowledge and deeper families, she is reminded of the middle- understanding. class Parsi household where she grew up in ’s Parsi colony, a family for Professor Milojkovic has honoured me, a whom she is as good as dead. few weeks ago, with the proposal of becoming his partner in the School he Simran, who oversees programmes for the founded. Indian arm of an international non-profit, can’t help wondering how different life I am proud to inform the community that its would have been if her family had accepted members are most welcome to come and her the way she was. A rejection of her study with the School in Geneva. Our identity is what drove Simran to leave home School is enabled by the State of Geneva to and brave the mean streets of Mumbai, deliver the necessary diplomas at all levels: working as a bar dancer and sex worker. Bachelor, Master, Post-Master (Virtuosity), which are recognized for their prestige. We “I would not have left home or changed my arrange accommodation in Geneva for the religion, had my family accepted me,” says students joining the School, either for a few Simran. But she has no regrets in life. years in order to obtain a diploma, or joining “Despite the hardship and the humiliation I us for a Master class (one week basis). have faced, I’ve still made it in life,” she says. But even today, as a respected social Our Master classes are generally held thrice activist in the NGO sector, she knows that a year, and all lovers of piano are welcome she can never return home. For all attempts to rejoin us for a musical week. to contact her family are met with the same q response - ‘Our son is dead for us.’

After obtaining her degree Licence en histoire des religions in 1978, “I started life as a homosexual boy in a from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, Yasmine Jhabvala Parsi family. I ran away from home at the studied the Avestan and Pahlavi languages. In 1979, she spent age of 14 because I felt that there was several months within the Parsi community in Bombay, something terribly wrong with me, and that furthering her knowledge of my parents would have to face a great deal Zoroastrianism and of the of humiliation because of me,” says Simran, Gathic language. Back in who does not wish to divulge her name Geneva, she became the assistant of Prof Rudhardt in before she joined the hijra community. History of Religions and began teaching on Simran still recalls the painful taunts thrown Zoroastrianism. In 1991, at her by friends and family while growing she defended her doctoral thesis “Vers Ahura Mazda”, up. “I remember an incident that occurred in which she presented a new during a terrace party that my father had vision of the Gathas of thrown for his friends in our Parsi colony. I Zarathustra. During these overheard my father’s friend mocking him years, she has also participated in different for having a ‘pansy’ son. I can’t forget the congresses organized by the humiliation I saw in my father’s eyes,” says University of Geneva or by the Zoroastrian community. Simran. Her navjote an initiation into the 63 In loving memory of my son Cyrus Happy Minwalla

Zoroastrian religion was no better. Simran landed her present job with HIV/AIDS can still recall Parsi Gujarati words like Alliance, where she works as Programme “baylo” floating in the air during the Officer for West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, ceremony. Manipur and Tamil Nadu.

“I ran away from home when I simply Her message to young people who are couldn’t bear the taunts any longer. I only confused about their sexual identity is had Rs16 in my pocket when I left the simple – believe in yourself. It took Simran house. I had no idea where I was going. For over two years to believe in herself and three days, I slept on the platform at accept her identity. Bombay Central station,” she says. But believing in oneself can be a trifle A Hijra found the young boy lying on the difficult when faced with a homophobic platform and made sexual advances at him. world that treats transgender as an She also offered the boy food and shelter. aberration. Simran is used to men “That was my first contact with the Hijra scratching their crotches in front of her and community, with whom I felt completely at women vacating seats in public transport home,” says Simran. because they don’t want to be near her.

That’s where the young Parsi boy found a “I don’t travel by the Delhi metro any more. 29-year-old Anahita new identity as Simran Shaikh. “The Hijra It is extremely hurtful when the person Mukherji has worked as a who found me on the platform took me sitting next to me gets up and walks away. journalist with The Times of Or when I’m told to vacate my seat in the India for the last seven years. under her wing and taught me how to drape While she spent a large part a sari. She would beg in railway trains lady’s compartment,” she adds. of her career with the during the day and solicit customers at newspaper in Mumbai, she night. I was very shy at the time and would q now lives in New Delhi. She has extensively covered a not accompany her while she was begging. range of subjects including But at night, I would come with her to dance education, environment and bars where she taught me the skills the Right to Information Act. required to attract customers and get them Her work includes stories on child labour, Mumbai’s to part with their money,” says Shaikh. remand homes as well as the truth behind India’s data on It’s during her days as a bar-dancer that forest cover. She has also Simran first met Zeenat, a Hijra guru from written stories from the country’s hinterland, and has Kamathipura, Mumbai’s famous red-light traveled to villages in district. “I was doing well in my profession as well as one and Zeenat offered to take me under her in West Bengal. She won the tutelage as her ‘chela’,” says Simran, who prestigious Sanskriti Award for journalism in 2010 for her has worked as both a bar dancer and a sex work on the inequality in the worker. country’s education system and was also the recipient of the first Australia India She is not ashamed of her past. She says Council Young Media her role as a sex worker was neither Fellowship. completely voluntary nor through coercion. “It’s just something I had to do to survive,” she says.

Simran†was part of a team that founded Dai Welfare Society, one of the first transgender community-based organizations in Mumbai. She later joined the Hindustan Latex Family 64 Planning Promotion Trust, after which she P i n g! WZO members please send your latest email id to [email protected] Thank you.