While Jaina claimed that there was affection, she was also aware that she could not completely depend on her brothers to fund the small luxuries that arose daily. She feared that she would then become vulnerable to her brothers’ accusations of sponging money, while giving nothing in return. The restraint exercised in not asking for money every day and the love that was proudly claimed revealed a certain tension between the brothers that hijras were hard-pressed to negotiate, since they had not exactly remained “a brother”. This form of calibrating transactions of money and food at home to maintain amicable relationships and a pleasant atmosphere was also observable in other spaces and times, in which other types of transactions took place. For example, Jaina’s brothers would never come to visit her shop or the shops of her friends because raunchy conversations... Their presence, Jaina told me, would markedly change the atmosphere, and nobody would be able to tease and flirt freely...

The presence of a hijra sibling was not seen as a breach of nature so much as a breach of structure. Hijras’ not leaving the family, but rather remaining in the household, led to a conundrum that obscured and thus punctuated the movement by which brothers became householders—and who are, by this movement, positioned against each other. One day when we were returning from a visit to Jaina’s widowed sister Jaira Bai, in the neighbouring village of Nuasahi, Jaina pointed to a tract of land she had bought 30 years ago: a rectangular piece that stood out because it was the only segment of the large area that remained uncultivated, whereas its four sides were furrowed and the land around it stuffed with paddy. She said, “This belongs to me.” I was a bit surprised, never having imagined that she owned anything. She said, “The land is worth six and a half lakhs rupees [R6,50,000], but my brothers are asking me to sell it to them for four lakhs [R4,00,000].” Given that her brothers took care of her, I enquired, why wouldn’t she sell it to them? She replied, “They take care of me because they want the land; they will throw me out after I give it to them. I am a hijra. There is nobody in front of me [referring to her lack of children]. When I can no longer work, how will I expect to live? My brothers won’t look after me—they will look after their own children. They will not think twice before kicking me out on the streets.”

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Excerpted with permission from Hijras, Lovers, Brothers: Surviving Sex and Poverty in Rural India by Vaibhav Saria, published by Oxford University Press 

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