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'Why should gender or sexuality define our identity?' By Lalitha Sridhar In a society where eunuchs can either be sex workers or beggars, Narthaki Natraj and Sakthi Bhaskar are well-known and respected Bharatanatyam artistes. This is their account of their battle against terrible cruelty and discrimination and their refusal to give up Excerpts from a conversation (translated from the Tamil) with Narthaki Natraj, speaking also on behalf of her friend and partner Sakthi Bhaskar, the world's first classical Bharatanatyam artistes who also happen to be eunuchs. Narthaki is an expert in Nayaki Bhava (emotional roles). A disciple says: "I know of many people who have cried during her performances." Narthaki has been felicitated by the Tamil Nadu state government and various cultural associations/sabhas with titles such as Natiya Peroli and Natiya Kala Ratna. Narthaki Natraj also holds a Sangeeta Natak Academy fellowship for 2003-05. "What we are doing must outlive us" Dance is my life. It is a fire that burns inside me. I am fortunate to be a successful Bharatanatyam performer. I want Sakthi and I to be recognised not on the basis of our gender or sexuality but as artistes. We have worked with absolute determination and we have made a confident future for ourselves. This is a divinely ordained decision. Why were two 'different' souls like us born? Nobody knows. We know that God will show us the way. It is this faith that keeps us going for we have faced bitter adversities and terrible cruelty along the way. After all, we are not going to be distracted by the compulsions of raising progeny or extending our lineage. We have no children to leave behind; we have no family or heirs. So dance is our legacy. Even after 500 years, this is what we want people to remember us by. For if there were a gravestone under which I were to lie, I would like it to say that here lies somebody who lived a useful life. "I don't want to be looked upon as a eunuch but as a fellow citizen" Look at this differently. Have you come across anybody who has never encountered this (the urge to be a eunuch) in themselves or in people in their family or circle of acquaintances? Secondly, no matter how great or powerful they might be, could they guarantee they would never encounter such a condition in the years to come? Even the shastras (cultural texts) have references to eunuchs. The Mahabharata has three crucial characters who were eunuchs -- Shikhandi and Brihanala, and Aravani, which is the form that Lord Krishna himself takes. This is a medically proven subject. We, on the other hand, have realised it, experienced it. We have not created something new. That makes us what we are. It is true that society has removed us and left us with few options. Sakthi and I decided that what a social being does, we will do. We are a part of the same society. We conduct ourselves as law-abiding citizens. I am not denying that we are eunuchs but I am striving to work in such a way that it is not our defining identity. "This was the rightful path we had chosen. It feels so only on reflection" Around adolescence we went through a very difficult phase, of realisation and acceptance. It is true that I did not choose to be like this but I did not want to spend the rest of my life feeling that I did not like it. At that point, it became clear that society would only allow us to be prostitutes or beggars. But that was not what we wanted. Sakthi and I became each other's strength. It was a very cruel phase of social ostracism. We would not have survived and coped with it if we had not been there to support each other. There were days when it all seemed so pointless and one of the two of us would despair enough to give it all up. But the other wouldn't let it happen. I credit Sakthi with charting this course for us, for never giving up, for believing in me and our art. This is what we had to do. I can tell you all this peacefully by looking back. All the disappointments, the exclusion, the contempt, the disgust, the vile insinuations, the ridicule -- we lived them and we actually survived. So now I can tell you. "It was easy to hate us, even for our families" Sakthi and I were childhood friends. We come from well-to-do forward families. Those were days when we lived in our native village of Anupanadi, near Madurai. When other children would play in the kovil mandai (temple grounds), I wouldn't fit in. I was different, perverted, not like the others. I would stand apart. The other children would leave and I would find a friend hiding and waiting for me, putting her hand over my shoulder and asking, "Shall we play?". And we would dance in the many spaces around a village where you could hide and not be noticed. We were only children but our common obsession with dance was already with us. Our village never was -- still isn't -- a place where culture exists. There is no platform for the arts, not even a small temple festival. They don't know art or artistes. In such a situation, here we were, mad about dancing. There was hell to pay at home. I would win all the prizes in dance competitions and school-related events. Every time I got the opportunity I would dance. I would try to remove every trace of having performed â make-up, hairdo -- but something would give me away, sometimes the leftover marks of the hastily scrubbed alta on my feet. Then I would abstain from dance till someone came along and told me that I had danced so well at such and such place and would I do it again? I would. It came to a point when it became impossible for me to live under that roof, and for them to tolerate me. I was about 11 then. After that, I took shelter wherever I could but continued my schooling. I finished Plus Two with great difficulty -- by then it was impossible to hide my sexuality and the peer group taunted and ragged me no end. How I lived through that extreme cruelty I don't know. I was an anomaly, a freak. I knew I would never be able to make it through college. "I knew that is what I wanted to do" Both Sakthi and I were very fond of the dancing of Vyjayanthi Mala Bali, not any other film star. She had class and her performances had roots in Bharatanatyam. I read in a Tamil magazine that she had learnt from the great guru, Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee K P Kitchappa Pillai, seventh generation descendent of the Thanjavur Quartet (Chinnayya, Ponnaiyya, Sivanandam and Vadivelu, known as the founders of the modern Bharatanatyam syllabi). When I found out that he was visiting Thanjavur, I went and fell at his feet, told him my whole story and begged him to accept me as his disciple. He did not accept me without trepidation. But once he did, I was welcomed for gurukulavasam (staying with and learning from the guru) for 14 years. I was also the only student he chose to be his assistant teacher for four years when he taught at the Tanjore Tamil University. He chose me especially for learning some rare compositions like the Nava Sandhi Kautuwam and the Melaprapthi, which were practised in temples and durbars before the formation of the new format of Bharatanatyam. When, after years of arduous learning, my arangetram (first formal/public performance) drew resounding applause, my guru told me backstage, "Do you hear that? That is what I taught you so rigorously for. Not because I doubted your ability or identity. But because you should be a great dancer". For me, that moment is etched forever in my mind -- it was like God had shown himself in my guru. "Every stone thrown at us, we treated as a stepping stone" We have set examples for people like us. I find many of them only complain about what a raw deal life has given them. But a positive route is possible -- this is what I want to show. I must emphasise -- this is a form of penance; it requires sacrifices, dedication and total involvement. Only then is success possible in one's chosen field. But it is possible. It is not as if there are no problems -- there are people who still look upon me as a spectacle, a weird oddity. Sometimes people look at me like they expect to see five hands and six legs. When we applied for a passport, and were forthright about our gender, they labelled us a 'U'. A scheduled foreign performance had to be cancelled because they wouldn't clear the visa for someone who was not classified 'M' or 'F'. I was shaken to the core. I surrendered my passport and told them they might as well keep it -- it had no use for me. If they couldn't push me up, at least they need not have pushed me down. One kindly officer took up our case and the ministry of external affairs issued us a passport last year that calls us female. That was another first. Now, there are many more who come to my performances and see me as an artiste. This time, in the Chennai December Music Season, in spite of having no godfather-like figures, I was invited to perform at the leading sabhas -- Krishna Gana Sabha, Narada Gana Sabha and the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. I have been awarded a fellowship by the Government of India. I am immensely proud of this. It vindicates our faith in ourselves. "Today, even though I struggle without mentors or sponsors, in my heart I am a koteeshwari (crorepati)" I am asked in interviews what I would have been if not a dancer. Typically, people say doctor or teacher or painter or something like that. I would have to say, if not this I would have been a prostitute in Mumbai or Delhi. It shocks people but it is the truth. I am a good human being. I dance to my conscience. I sleep well at night. My parents were not cursed. This is a natural instinct. We only want affection and acceptance from society. Today, we are totally independent. Even the dust on the soles of my slippers I have earned myself, with honesty and hard work. Narthaki is the name given to me by my guru. Natraj was what I was named when I was born. Narthaki is someone who always dances. What a coincidence that my given name should be that of the Lord of Dance (Nataraja, the dancing Shiva at Chidambaram). We are unparalleled. I call myself Thirunangai -- Supreme Woman. See how the world is -- everywhere there are women who wish they hadn't been born so, at some point or the other. Gender discrimination in various forms makes femininity something that is not preferred. We, on the other hand, have proudly chosen it. I may not be beautiful enough, nor have the required form and figure in the correct proportions, but I am a woman. I will not bother to reply if someone refers to me as 'he'. I am not a cross-dresser, I am not a homosexual. When people ask us if we are this or that, they dig a wound that can never heal; a wound that they have caused. I don't need pity but compassion. I don't ask for special treatment but I need support. Narthaki Natraj may be reached at: Narthaki Nruthya Kalalaya G-A, Kesava Flats #2&3, Kalvivaru Street Mylapore Chennai 600004 Tel: 91-44-24660413 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Lalitha Sridhar is a Chennai-based journalist (InfoChange News & Features, March 2004) -- Babul Gogoi NEDFi IT Park Ulubari, B K Kakati Road Guwahati - 781007, INDIA http://www.assamcompany.com _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam Mailing list FAQ: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
