Having heard a story about a faraway land where all people walk naked Khodja was horrified: - “How can they tell a man from a woman! Poor people!”
-from a collection of sayings by Wise Fool Khodja, from Turkish Folklore
“But the hijras are not merely ordinary, impotent men. As performers, they are seen as vehicles of the divine power of the Mother Goddess.”
- Neither Man nor Woman, the Hijras of India, by Serena Nanda
Neither Man nor Woman. Third Gender. Dimorph. Intersex. Poor Khodja. How is he to know? Clothes won’t tell him the whole story anyway, not if he is looking at a sari-clad troupe of hijras singing and dancing door to door on commercial streets and into private homes, giving blessings and seeking alms to a tambourine’s beat.
Hijras may be India’s third sex but they mostly show up to tease its first sex and to celebrate its second. They come to bless newborn boys and sing such verses as these after a healthy delivery when all are in good cheer, to mock the fruit of the mother’s labor, as recorded by anthropologist Nanda…”What will this first male child be when he grows up? Headache, yes yes. Heartburn, yes. I cannot sit down, I cannot stand up. How will the pregnancy be? I’ll throw up, yes yes.” They come also to a groom’s house to sing lyrics, all in good fun, accusing him of being illegitimately born, of darker skin than the bride, of being too skinny to deserve such a beauty- all the while she listens in, blushing and knowing that hijras speak the truth..
I remember being in a dusty shop once when a hijra troupe came in, first I thought they were gaudily dressed Hare Krishnas, but no, they had no shaved heads. They were coming in advance of the Holi festival, when pockets are full and people are generous. Their singing was joyous and raucous, the customers did not mind the impromptu, the shopkeeper gladly opened the till, and out they happily went. No Khodja, there were no Poor People in that store. No one seemed to care if they were neither man nor woman.