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Eunuchs: India's Third Gender (Q&A with Michael Yorke)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 7:30 PM (GMT)

London, United Kingdom

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A 'Conversations in Film' initiative This film explores the traditional role of transgender people in village Indian and what is happening to them in the modern cities. Given the age old and rigid polarity between the world of Indian men and women, there has always been a place for people who are more comfortable in the grey area between the genders. India has an ancient tradition of being a Hijra, of being neither male nor female. They are a well organised sect. This film explores the world of Shardabai, the Empress Hijra of Mewar. She lives in a traditional mansion with nine other Hijras. She rules over the 120 hijras in the feudal state of Mewar. She is their mother and guru, initiating them into the traumatic world of being neither male nor female. She says that her mansion is a “saint’s monastery” and she runs it like one. Kiran was recently castrated and wants to marry her male lover. She shuns the traditional world of the hijras and wants to become a prostitute in Mumbai. This film penetrates the tensions between these two worlds, both existing on the rejected margins of India. But Hijras have great esoteric powers to curse and bless births and marriages. They are the sexologists of village India, a society riven by the usual hang-ups. As people who have renounced their gender and sexuality they are seen have risen above the duality of gender and become ascetics with powers of divinity. Made for the BBC2 “Under the Sun” series in 1991 Duration 52 minutes Language and subtitles : English Locations in India : Ajmer, Rajkot, Mumbai. Directors Note While doing fieldwork in village India I soon became aware that Hijras are the best informants. Because they are neither male nor female, they cannot inherit land, nor marry into it. They live by their wits alone. Life on the margins of society means they are thinkers rather than doers, society’s intellectuals, rejecting the received wisdom of their culture. Sensitised by the trauma of their marginality they think outside the box and have an enlightened and articulate view of their own culture. Great people to talk to and great subjects for a documentary than could challenge the received wisdom. My film was awarded the Golden Globe award at the San Francisco Film Festival, but it was X rated by the screening committee and could not be shown. Interesting that American values cannot stomach the accepted, but marginal, values of one of the world’s oldest traditions. Credits Director, producer: Michael Yorke Research: Surinder Puri & Aruna Har Prasad Camera: Andrew Carchrae & Noel Balbirnie Sound: Mike Shoring & Diane Rushton Editor: Peter Barber Narration : Aruna Har Prasad Series Producer: Chris Curling