Cultural Corner: Lead Story

"Is there a Heaven for me?"

The day dawned, but there is only darkness in the heart of the 11-year old child. Darkness, questions, and anxieties. Why was I born, the little heart rages. Why can’t the darkness cover me, consume me? Why must the light of day dawn around me, making me visible to the world, the child asks.

Such intense questions for a young, normal child, you may wonder. The child, though, feels anything but normal. The child falls outside the purview of gender - a hermaphrodite, neither a man nor a woman. Sadly, there are more than 500,000 such people in India alone. They question their very existence. They are the objects of scorn on the streets. They are sneered at, laughed at, insulted. Some fear them, some mock them, and some pity them.

In Indian society, they are called names, names that they themselves do not desire to be known by. Their appearance is strikingly masculine but their predominantly womanly behavior and qualities earn them intense disdain. Encountering deep rejection from close family and friends at a very early age and at every step, such people go through trauma and by the ages of 15 and 17, they attempt suicide several times.

Ostracized by the society, they fall into a deep despair and experience overwhelming loneliness. To survive, people with similar orientations join together and form a community having its own deity, rituals and traditions. In Tamilnadu, such a community is called ‘Aravaan’ or the community of eunuchs. To bring about a feeling of normalcy, the community often chooses its members to be aunties, mothers, daughters, and granddaughters, through a series of rituals. Aravaans hold a once-a-year, special festival in Koodavaagam in Tamilnadu, where eunuchs from all over the world gather. During the festival, they perform rituals to symbolize their experiences of rejection and isolation by tying the thaali (a thread signifying marriage) around the neck of the deity and then divorcing themselves by breaking the thread, a symbol signifying their isolation from the rest of the world, and probably from the gods themselves.

Since people in the society are embarrassed to be seen with them or around them, they often pay them money to go away. The eunuchs have therefore established a business of going around demanding money in different ways.

In olden days, kings often employed eunuchs, called ‘Hijras’ to guard and serve them. In the modern setting, however, rejected by family and shunned by society, they drop out from school, are thrown out into the streets and are often homeless having no means to meet their basic necessities. They are jobless resort to begging, extortion or prostitution.

As the church of God, and as His children, our call is to love and accept these that have been rejected by society. Find practical ways to help them. Educate them, take care of their medical requirements, and teach them to benefit from special government schemes that have been set up for them. More importantly, share the gospel with them and pray for them.

        
'Olga' (left) and 'Sabina' (right) - Hermaphrodites
Both underwent surgery for total sex change

The stories of most eunuchs are full of despair and defeat. And yet there are people like Olga and Sabina (names have been changed to protect privacy), who swim against the tide. Olga, Sabina and others like them underwent medical surgery for total sex change and became women. They received help from certain people in the church and today, they are highly qualified individuals with good jobs. They have earned the respect of the society and continue to be examples of courage, confidence and kindness.

Indeed, God will never cast away anyone that comes to Him. Neither must we.

Translated from the April 2006 edition of the ‘Women in Focus’ magazine article by Saltina Alan John