ASHA

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It was a regular Sunday. This day which is supposed to be a non-working non-earning day for the job-holders is perhaps the most beneficial day for Asha, as her face is lit with elation every time the traffic signal changes its colour from green to red. Caked in cheap rouge, kajal, powder and lipstick, she was dressed in ill-fitting blouses and colourful saris in a parody of womanhood, just like others of her clan, as they roam the busy marketplaces in groups, terrorising pedestrians, hustling for ten or a hundred rupees. Well, yes, Asha is not one of your average beggars on the street. With a male voice shouting expletives, palms meeting in a trademark clap, she goes to all those drivers stuck up in traffic, who will part with their cash sooner than be treated to the sight of her lifting up her sari and flashing a lot of which was unusual.
“I don’t like doing all this at all!” she sighed as it was again the time for those daily conversations she was going to have with her daughter, Vishwa, whom she would give up the world for. Having an offspring of her own, was something that could only have been a dream for someone like Asha which, thankfully, was fulfilled by an orthodox family who didn’t want to bring this baby girl up when she was born. Asha found Vishwa beneath a secluded heap of trash where she had been deserted by her parents within a few days after her birth. And of course, who could actually know what it is to be abandoned more than Asha?
She made a promise to herself that she will do anything to give Vishwa an upbringing that she deserves. “But maa, why do you have to do this all the time? Can’t you live like all of these people around us do? Can’t you have a normal job and the freedom to roam freely like everyone else does?”, the 10-year-old girl asked with her eyes more curious than ever, as if these thoughts were always on her mind. “Beta, the society which you see around you, is a pool of masqueraded people, who may seem very helpful and broad-minded from the outside but are nothing more than a bunch of mortals who’ve accepted only a few of all the facts and have set norms to which people like me don’t fit.” Her mother sighed. “What do you mean when you say people like you?” “You’re too young to know that beta, have some sleep, you’ve got school to attend tomorrow, good night.” She kissed the young lad on the forehead with the last question tormenting her head like every day, just like reality got a chance to pinch her again.
Asha was a eunuch. Born in a small village of Punjab, she was born as a boy, being the youngest amongst three sisters and two brothers. As she grew up to developing many feminine characteristics, her parents, willingly accepted and loved her, but soon  the villagers demanded she be removed, making her family outcasts. So she left one day, escaping to a group of eunuchs who showed her the secrets of their world. At the age of 18 she fled to Mumbai, startled by the way how society functioned, where humanity was perhaps the least significant virtue and how there was no recognition or equal rights for those who didn’t belong to the two prominent genders in which the society was divided. Her life was the same till she found Vishwa. She began begging at the traffic signal during day-time and attending weddings, dancing in bars, going to places of newly born kids in the evening, apparently to take away all the ‘misfortune’ but to build a fortune for Vishwa in reality.
As Vishwa was seeing her mother drowned in a series of thoughts, she fondly placed her head on her lap, “May be I am too young to know your past but there is one thing I always want you to know. You are my world and I realise every bit of what you are doing for me. I promise to make you proud one day and give you a life you deserve, very soon. Good night maa.” The sorrowful moistness in her eyes flowed as a train of tears of happiness. As she prepared for her regular morning at the traffic signal the next day, her faith in humanity just got restored realising that she was a parent to one of the kindest souls and that now she could finally dare and dream of a future, bigger and brighter than ever.

- Rtr Drashti Sangani
Editor, Joint Secretary and Vice-President
Human Resources designate 2015-16

Rotaract Club of Bombay Film City

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