T-Factor

Written by : Abhisek Pattnaik
Pic Courtesy : Shutterstock.com

I never went to school. Maybe because my birth parents were more caring for their hard earned family reputation than my well-being. So, I won’t be able to tell genetically, how different I am from the rest of you. You may say I am not alone… True. But, how many of you have a friend like me? You can take your time to recollect. But, that won’t take much of your time. Would it?  As we don’t pass down as someone whom you easily forget. You must have seen us at toll booths or railway platforms in our colourful sarees or to celebrate childbirth at someone’s residence. We give blessings in exchange of money and we are loudmouths. But, at least we feel free, staying true to our instincts.
I tell you, this world continues to amaze me. How come on one side you absolutely celebrate diversity, uniqueness, art and creativity. And on the other, you tend to blindly loathe my kind for being different than you. For being miniscule, shouldn’t we be celebrated? In some parallel we must be treated like angels. Huh!
I don’t know why I am, the way I am. Maybe because my mother was able to lift the stone while she carried me inside her: the revered stone of some Baba long forgotten; as a sign of one carrying a boy inside her, when I was always meant to be a girl. You’ll never understand me perhaps. Cause this world is yet to allow me to understand myself. Years of forced identity led to expulsions one day, separating me from my family only to give me a new one of my kind. And I continue to survive. Though I would have liked it to be different.
I would love to walk on the streets without any vile comment or wild long stares coming in my direction for a change.
I would love someone to come and talk to me instead of the usual transactions for trading my flesh.
I would…
I would…
I wonder, would you treat me the same in your dreams, where there is no conception of layered society, no bias for or against any gender and above all no eyes to judge your actions…
I would love to be treated as another human for a change.