Reconstruction Vol. 16, No. 2
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"Opting‐out": The Cinematic Representation of Hijra in Santhosh Souparnika's Ardhanaari (2012) / Sreedevi T. K.
Abstract
This paper explores the cinematic representation of Hijrasi in the Malayalam film Ardhanaari (
Light Falls on an Obscure World, 2012), directed by Santhosh Souparnika. Apart from the usual
male/female binary opposition, this film is concerned in particular with the notion of Third Gender as a discursive site of intervention. The cultural
discourses inherent to this concept are central to this paper.
Keywords: Hijra , Ardhanaari, transgender, Malayalam cinema
<1> Issues concerned with gender/class politics are vital in every society and are reflected in cultural modes of expression such as literature, arts
and films of that society. Each of these works takes up its own political position in order to address these
issues. Film as a popular genre provides multiple possibilities of initiating a dialogue with the issues of gender and class. This paper explores the
cinematic representation of Hijrasi in the Malayalam film Ardhanaari ( 2012), directed by Santhosh Souparnika. Apart from the usual male/female binary opposition, this film is particularly concerned with the concept of
a Third Gender as a discursive site of intervention. The cultural discourses inherent to this concept are central to the discussion that follows.
<2> The term hijra is used in South Asia-particularly in India-to refer to a transgender individual. The word is derived from the Urdu‐Hindustani for "leaving one's tribe" and signifies a "wanderer" or a person "without any place." In India, it is most often translated into English as "eunuch" or "transgender." These nuanced terms, however different from a contemporary Western understanding, suggest an absence of space and burdened with derogatory connotations. Generally speaking, they are born into a male body and with feminine qualities and, thus, exist within a unique liminal space; their observable differences serve to separate them from the social mainstream.
<3> By and large, masculinity frames the dominant culture in most modern societies. In the concept of Ardhanaari (at times translated as "androgyny" or "hermaphroditism"), too, the predominance and privilege of masculinity is implied. It is in this context that the male/female duality is bracketed as negotiation. In India, it is not only a matter of gender/ biological identity but also of social identity. Neither the social system at large nor the family in particular welcomes a transgender individual. The discrimination against them ranges from a lack of educational rights or opportunities, an absence of civil and property rights, as well as a prohibition against enjoying equal legal and social rights. Absence or lack of such position results in their fleeing from home, joining in (and identifying with) the hijra group and engaging thereafter in those occupations relegated to their position, among them begging, performing otherwise forbidden sexual activities, participating in public ceremonies and offering ritualistic blessings traditionally associated with them Nanda 1998; Reddy 2005; and Revathi 2010). Added to this, Hijra are subjected to emotional, sexual, physical and economic harassment by the public at large, not the least among them the police. Thus, the everyday life of the transgender individual is marked by incessant opting out from all normative structures.
<4> The deification of transgender is no different from their discrimination, for both serve to remove and prohibit them from enjoining in the activities of "normal" daily life of the community at large. That is to say that, if the sexuality of a transgender is accepted, s/he is free to negotiate and to engage with the space. Here, the space of entry and exit is well demarcated. They are permitted the power not only to bestow blessing, but also to level curses against people. On ceremonial occasions such as wedding or the birth of children, they will enter homes and offer blessings. In return, they demand money. It is a widely held belief that, if hijrasi are not treated with a degree of respect in accordance with convention, they will curse a household with such disgraces as childlessness or infertility, for example. Although their participation in such ritualistic behaviors allows them to earn their living, it restricts the spaces within which they might function. This act of confinement is in a word political.
<5> It comes as no surprise that mainstream cinematic representations in the Malayalam tradition emphasize the dominant heterosexual or heteronormative order and that any articulation of queer is represented with taboos or becomes an object of humor, sarcasm or ridicule. The film Evan Ardhanaari (Figure 1), released in 2012 and written and directed by Santhosh Souparnika, includes an array of eminent and popular actors from the Malayalam film industry, among them Manoj K. Jayan, Thilakan, Maniyanpilla Raju, Sukumari, Meenakshi, in addition to the inclusion of a number of transgender individuals (Figure 2). The film explores the conflicts in the structures of everyday life of a transgender in Kerala and initiates a polemic configured upon a normative heterosexuality. It highlights the collective issues of transgender characters, including their strained family life, their exclusion from such constitutional rights as ownership and the possession of property, proof of identity, the availability of and access to ration cards, and a guaranteed protection from social and cultural discrimination.
Figure 1 and 2. Film poster and a collective group of hijirasi
<6> Dating back to Vedic literature and mythology, the prototypical Ardhanareeswara of Indian mythology reverberates in the title of the film Evan Ardhanaari. Literally, Ardhanareeswara (< ardha, half + nari, woman, + eswara, God) is the God possessed of the body of half man and half woman and is attributed to Lord Siva (Figure 3) who shares half of his body in common with his consort Parvathy.
Figure 3. Lord Shiva
Usually, the right half is the male, Shiva, and the left, the female, Shakthy (Figure 4). In the classical tradition, the wife conventionally sits or stands to the left of her husband. Therefore, she is referred to as Vamabhagam, literally "the left‐sided one." As a composite form, Shivashakthy is seen as the unification of masculine and feminine energies in the universe. In the Hindu Puranic canon, the image of Shivashakthy indicates completeness.
Figure 4. The composite nature of Shivashakthy
<7> In some versions of the Sanskrit epic poem Ramayana, Rama while departing from his kingdom for a fourteen‐year exile in the forest, turns to his followers and entreats the "men and women" to return to the ancient city of Ayodhya, one of the seven sacred Hindu cities. Upon his return, he finds a group of hijrasi awaiting him. Neither men nor women, they were in a very real sense "exiled," precluded from return by his words and forced to remained behind for the duration of Rama's exile.
<8> In the other celebrated Sanskrit epic poem, the Mahābhārata, Amba, the eldest Princess of Kashi, takes rebirth as a transgender person in order to kill the great warrior Bhishma. During the eighteen‐day dynastic struggle between two groups of cousins that became the Kurushethra War, Shikhandi served as the charioteer of Arjuna, the third of the Pandava brothers and, alongside Krishna, the protagonist of the work. Knowing that Bhishma have taken a vow never to shoot woman, Arjuna keeps the transgender Shikhandi in front of him as a shield. Bhishma could not fight back and, thus, was killed. Or in another instance in the text , focused on Aravan, the son of Arjuna and Nagakanya, we see that following their victory in Kurukshethra the Pandavas offered Aravan to the Goddess Kali. As a token of tribute, Aravan was presented three boons by Lord Krishna. Because Aravan had made a condition that he spend his last night in blissful matrimony and because no woman was willing to marry him, Krishna himself assumed the form of the beautiful woman Mohini and in this way married him.
<9> Thus, the hijrasi trace their origins directly to mythologies inscribing the Ramayana and the Mahābh ārata. They believe that they have been given the right to bestow blessings upon others by Lord Sree Rama. The hijrasi of Tamil Nadu, for example, consider Aravan as their ancestor and refer to themselves as Aravanis. But it is important at this juncture as we recognize that any attempt to trace personal origins back to the likes of myth/canon/history is itself an integral part of establishing one's self. Bolstered by the myths of Ramayana, Ardhanareeswara, Amba and Aravan, they recapture their space in order to establish their personal identity and, by doing so, reclaim and accommodate themselves in the Indian tradition. Their actions are by their very nature also political. Thus, apart from the intention of the director of this film to raise concerns over the rights of transgender individuals and frame them as social issue, this film itself goes a step further: it becomes an overt attempt to re‐establish and reaffirm a canon for hijrasi.
Opposition of the Gender Binary
<10> The gender binary is a system by which society recognizes and divides its members into the specific categories of male or female and, by in doing so, inscribes them with certain discernable and recognizable gender roles, identities and characteristics. In her Transgender History, for example, Susan Stryker defines transgender as "people who move away from the gender they were assigned at birth, people who cross over (trans‐) the boundaries constructed by their culture to define and contain their gender" (2008). Hence, transgender individuals opt themselves out of the ordinary constraints of gender. Put differently, they (attempt to) break or dismantle the man/woman binary by establishing a "third" position, by its very nature a composite position accommodating intersex variations.
<11> Within the film proper, the protagonist Vinayan (Manoj K. Jayan) is biologically male but possessed of feminine qualities. His story begins in his teenage years, at a time of initial exploration of gender. Mainstream society exerts an inordinate pressure on him to define himself in accordance with prevailing heteronormative structures. On seeing Vinayan dressed up as female, the teacher resorts to conventional wisdom: "the one having a masculine body is a man and the one with a feminine body is a woman." The man/woman binary, however, is subjected to further scrutiny by Vinayan as he recognizes difference in "the one with a masculine body and feminine mind," and poses the most essential of questions, "who am I?" After a murder, Vinayan reiterates the heteronormative world of the school, where the teacher had "taught that the world is for man and woman," but as he does so again reframes his question in similar terms but asks about the space available to "the one with a man's body and a woman's mind." He answers himself both with another question, "what sort of a creature am I?" and as a poignant expression of personal survival: "I, too, want to live."
Figure 5. The return
Although the film calls into question the man/woman binary, it concomitantly re‐establishes its primacy. After the death of Jameela (Maniyanpilla Raju), the Priest (Sukumari) beats the corpse, all the while expressive a larger orthodox disdain with "will you take birth in the same form again?" Looking down upon the corpse, even Nayik (Thilakan) responds in keeping with the rigid ideological tenets in place governing gender: "If there is another birth, you must pray to become a complete woman." Balu, who had a wife and child, returns to Manjula (Vinayan) and they marry at Jamath (Figure 5). Throughout the film, hijrasi are recognized by the outside world as female and are identified with feminine pronouns. Their position, however, stands in direct contradiction to this usage, for they are no permitted to identify themselves as female. Their inclusion within larger society is made all the more problematic.
<12> A reconstitution of our gender classification is, therefore, necessary. Feminism as a movement which initiated the liberation of women from the suppression proved to be incapable of explaining the problems of certain groups, among them the Black Woman. Nonetheless, there is an essentially demarcated space between man, woman and hijrasi, (including as it were all the intersex variations). That Balu's wife can express her concerns to Manjula―"I don't know what you are giving him more than what I as a woman am giving" ―underscores as much. That is to say that whenever we address the issue of transgender, there is simultaneously a forced attempt to position transgender within the gender binary. Annie Fasto‐Sterling proposes in her "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough" that we ought recognize hermaphrodites, male pseudo‐hermaphrodites and female pseudo‐hermaphrodites as additional sexes each in its own right. "Sex is a vast infinitely malleable continuum," she argues, "that defies the constraints of even five categories" (2002: 21). Within the context of the film, for example, the protagonist Vinayan, later renamed by the Jamaath as Manjula, is presented as bisexual, an act of naming that defies rigid gender categorization by embracing multiple combinations of seeming fluidity (Figure 6).
Figure 6. Representations of gender fluidity Social Subjectivity in Cinema
<13> The foremost issue dealt with in this film is the issue of social acceptance of the third gender. Society and family alike ridicule Vinayan for dressing as a "girl" from adolescence. At first, his/her father ignores the situation, preferring instead to dismiss it as a childhood fascination; later he was crestfallen on hearing that his child is in love with a boy. His/her brother Jaganathan, a prominent political leader, considers him as a disgrace. Only Balu accepts Vinayan's identity―noting as he does so that "when I grow up, …I will marry you." But later, now grow up, Balu steps back and as he does so defends his behavior with a series of questions: "Have you ever heard of man marrying a man? Can you bear my child?" Inherent to these questions, society either tries to eliminate or to penalize that which does not fit into its sophisticated but preconceived structures. Jaganathan reflects the prevailing social consciousness as he "settles" any issue of disgrace by appointing a professional killer to banish Vinayan. And again Vinayan questions heteronormative notions of gender identity and leaves the home that had rejected him so that he might enter the Hamam, the public baths. Returning home after a few weeks, he is arrested for the murder of the hired killer and is sexually violated while at the police station. When his brother comes with bail, the same policeman having instigated the violation asks whether he is not ashamed to engage with "such a kind of person."
<14> Clearly, in his youth, Vinayan has become an object of ridicule, thr laughing stock of the community. S/he is subjected to exploitation by the people. One of the old man of the village even suggests, "You should not change your mannerisms, [for] it is our only enjoyment at this age" (Figure 7). Any number of similar situations echo just such social subjectivity.
Figure 7. "Our only enjoyment"
It is, for example, rumored that Vinayan's sexual proclivities may have proven an important reason for delaying of his/her sister's marriage. In another instance, the hijra Kokila has entered a serious relationship with an unemployed Sanjay. In fact,. Kokila seems to meet all of his needs. While questioning the sincerity of their relation, however, Sanjay makes a snide observation: "That eunuch and I have got some business deals." His words betray a larger attitude of similar clients of the hijrasi. Tellingly, after Kokila and Sanjay marry and Kokila has used all of his/her savings to purchase a house in Sanjay's name, s/he is shortly thereafter burnt to death. Still another complains that a policeman had engaged in sexual activities and had stolen the money s/he had earned for the day. In place of payments for services rendered, s/he received a beating.
Constitution of a Queer Body
<15> Beyond the physical structure, what we recognize as its corporeality, the body is laden with socio‐cultural implications. In her "Bodylore," Katherine Young analyses the process of such embodiment, recognizing as she does so that Bodies prognosticate the discourses they inhabit. Different discourses fabricate different bodies. The panoply of possibilities of the body as a discursive focus discloses the underlying suppositions concentrations and insights of bodylore as a discourse. (1994: 3) Body becomes a site that generates discourses of class, race, gender and sexuality. And individual engagement in such discourses necessitates the creation of the Other. The existence of self determines the Other. Of importance to the discussion at hand, the "queer body," conceived as an agonized body, carries the discourses of estrangement, humiliation, discrimination and conflict. In Evan Ardhanaari, for example, the hijrasi routinely flee their homes. Not surprising, Vinayan also flees, for his/her body as a corporeal entity is inscribed within the discourses that have promulgated the agonies of an unmarried sister, a brother disgraced and the rejection by an erstwhile boyfriend.
<16> "To enter into, to capture the experience of another," Young reminds us, "is to enter into or capture the body of the Other" (1994: 4). Such an entrance can be made viable through photography, a process that alienates, objectifies and exteriorizes the body. Put differently, it defines the body from outside. Film as an extension of photography across time and space reiterates the scope for alienation and objectification. As a first‐person narrative told from the perspective of Vinayan, this film captures life experiences by entering into his/her body. By opening up a discursive site of encounter into the body of the Other, Sauparnika in effect raises his directorial voice to decry atrocities against transgender individuals.
<17> When Young speaks of the "materialization" of the body, she clearly suggests how we interpret and ascribe meaning to it., but she goes a step further. This process necessarily "emphasizes … brute physiological, sexual and scatological properties (1994: 5).
Figure 8. The gaze upon a body
Throughout the film, for example, the body of the hijra is scrutinized, subjected as it were to patriarchal gaze though several telling scenes, among them "open bathing" where Vinayan is made the center of attraction or with specific instances of his walking. At the hamam, bathers comment openly on a body―full breasts, buttocks and cherry lips, for example, the beauteous elements attributed to the feminine―capable of attracting the attentions of men. Each of these situations invariably accentuates the erotic nature of this gaze (Figure 8). At the same time, the masculine nature of Vinayan's body evokes repulsion, so much so that at one point Sanjay seems compelled to ask, "are you not ashamed of dressing like this?" But the patriarchal gaze is separate from gender in the sense that women, too, adopt it. Recall, for example, the moment when Balu's wife confronts Vinayan and asks, "what pleasure are you giving him other than what I have given?" Doubtless, in such instances the body is objectified both as a means of earning a livelihood but also as a weapon, if not of self‐loathing, then of attack by others. While begging, we learn, in those incidences when they are not paid for their services, they likely raise their clothes and show their disgust. The patriarchal gaze imposed upon transgender individuals consequently erects the portrayal of the Other both from without and within simultaneously.
<18> Because with such portrayals our concern is with how the body embodies the self, the body/mind problematic becomes an important concern. Whereas the materiality of the body whose sex is inscribed on it constitutes the construction from outside, the experiential site of the body constitutes the construction from inside. Certainly, the bodies of the hijrasi are biologically male, but as experiential sites, they are rendered feminine in nature. Thus arises a conflict between the body and mind. For the gestures and postures, feelings and emotions are perceived as the experiential site of the body (Figure 9). In such moments, the body‐proper is necessarily transgressed.
Figure 9. The body as experiential site
<19> More to the point, the body/mind problematic leads to issues of embodiment and disembodiment of self on the corporeal level. The very attempt to fit into the socio‐cultural body that is in a very real sense defined by biology conflicts with the just as real needs of the self, leading concomitantly to the denial and eventual expulsion of the physical structure and the constitution and the imposition of the Other. In fact, some hijrasi participate in the nirwaan, a ritualistic and brutal ceremony at once disfiguring and reconfiguring the body by removing the penis, scrotum and testicles. In effect, the body is rendered that of a "complete woman," ironic insofar as the physical completion comes at the expense of absence. Connoting as much, the term nirvan literally means "liberation." In Buddhist conception of Nirvana as a place of perfect peace and happiness and as a state of enlightenment preserves this meaning, albeit within the realm of the spiritual. For a transgender person, the nirwaan becomes a means to an end, a way to eliminate the disharmony in the body‐mind complex and to integrate it through a process of denial and removal. When Kokila decides to undergo Nirwaan, Nayik reminds us of the precarious nature of this experience, for by aspiring "to become a complete woman. …she will become a woman by cutting away the sexual organ that has stood as a barricade to femininity."
<20> The constant effort to "opt out" of biological structure and its limitations is evident from the very beginning. Although the socio‐cultural body rises to the demands of mainstream expectations, for example, by routinely cutting the hair and wearing male accoutrements, the "self" opts out an dis give form in postures and gestures, emotions and feelings. This process renders the body as an impenetrable and closed Other. Young applies Bakhtin's concept of the Grotesque Body to explicate the phenomena of ethereal constitution of the Other. The material constitution of "the body [often] appears to, and recedes from, us and the others" (1994: 6). The inability of material constitution to coincide with and thus comprehend the Other leads to the alienated and otherworldly ethereal constitution. For the hijrasi, the queering of the body transcends matters of blessing and destruction. It direct impacts infertility. Formally ritualized in the context of certain auspicious days―weddings and the birth of a child, for example―the film, however, is the reiteration of the ethereal concept embodied in the term Ardhanaari. It comes as no surprise that Vinayan is described as an incarnation of Lord Shiva, the prototype of the concept of Ardhanaari. Vinayan's father, himself a staunch devotee of Lord Shiva, goes so far as to ask him/her to reveal the viswaroopam, the divine complete body).
Hamam as a Counter Space
<21> As a microcosm of society complete with its own self‐regulating disciplinary rules, in effect, the hamam becomes a household wherein hijrasi might live as a family. These rules, more to the point, by accommodating their needs, erect a counter space―as home, bath and brothel―especially suited to them. That is to say that they thrive in a liminal space defined by the blurring of the boundaries of an internalizing home and an externalizing workspace.
<22> Recall, for example, that Vinayan flees to the hamam following the murder of the hired killer and Balu's rejection and that there he meets another hijra Kokila, who would take him/ her to their abode, as Kokila describes it, "a place of love." The hamam therefore comes in this instance to represent that ideal state wherein every man in general and hijrasi in particular aspire to live. It posits, however momentarily, a state of happiness and love, founded on the oppositional principles of pleasure and hard work. Nayik further reiterated this point, postulating that "Life is to enjoy [and[ not for crying. For us mother, familial relations and society are strangers." Nayik further admonishes Vinayan "not want to make a living by cheating, perjury and crimes…[but] work hard and earn money and with that lead a good life." These are, all said and done, the values espoused by and upheld by the hijrasi community. While mainstream society succumbs to worldly evils, they as a rule embrace the otherworldly and, thus, provide a separation from such in their daily lives. The borderline drawn between man and hijra reverberates sufficiently as Nayik recognizes the precarious nature of their position "Man is creature who lives in the poisonous influence of money in this damned system," he recounts, "[but] we too need money to survive."
<23> The codes and conducts prescribed in the world of the hamam are different from those of mainstream society. Sex work, begging and the like, long considered mean and offensive by the latter are reconceived within the bathes as normative behaviors. Entrance into the space requires a ritualistic process of initiation marked by service as a neophyte chela in servitude of a Guru for no less than one year. In the end, if the Guru is satisfied that the aspiring student has mastered the finer arts of the bath, then he will move to recognize them as hijra and bring them into the fold, into the family life and social life perculiar to the space. In contrast with the world of mainstream society that does no more than assert humiliation and insecurity among them, within the parameters of the jamath, or non‐political circle, they are upheld and take strength from their world. As Vinayan himself admits, "the knowledge that we have our own social systems strengthened me."
<24> Another feature characteristic of life within the hamam is the mutual sense of belonging among its members. Consider that moment when Vinayan longs for love, and recall that Jameela assumes the role of his/her mother and offers maternal consolation. Or when Jameela is bedridden, the others gather round and take care of her (Figure 10). Whereas in the actual familial relation into which each has been born, each has suffered the sting of rejection at the hands of their relatives. Vinayan confronts a murderer appointed by his brother who has, coincidentally, prohibited his return to his native place. Sanjay burns Kokila for financial gain. But in what appears to be a restoration of balance, Balu eventually returns to Vinayan and marries him/her, albeit while keeping his first marriage a secret.
Figure 10. Providing consolation to others
<25> A life of mutual co‐operation, understanding personal dignity, as well as assisting in the emotional, economic and physical needs of others, remains at the core of this circle. We need only consider the death rite administered among the hijrasi. Here they walk of the corpse towards its grave, supported all the while by her former chelas, dressed as they are in white sarees, the traditional garb of widows within the Indian system. Conventionally, an integral part of this ceremony within the mainstream is the breaking of the wife's bangles. A similar tradition exists among the hijrasi. Here the widow of a guru participates in a similar ritual, but in this instance the bangles of the Chela are broken by other hijrasi. Only then is the body buried in upright position, itself a vestige of a larger mythology within which warriors were buried thusly. At the burial of Jameela, Nayik goes so far as to reclaim a sense of dignity and humanity, noting that "just like a human being Jameela came into this world with a lot of dreams; she leaves this nasty world without taking anything."
<26> Likewise, resistance of the hijrasi against the heteronormative imperative handed down from takes many forms. With the Eighteen‐Day Festival in Koovagam, the they assume the position of Aravanis so that they might participate in the ritual marriage to the Hindu god Aravan and thereafter be allowed to mourn his ritual death. This counter‐cultural act of resistance, in fact, proves highly successful insofar as it dismantles, erases for a time the stereotypical trappings all too familiar to gender, class, racial identification. In shorts, it generates, sui generis, a new social order.
<27> In general, we expect that queer approaches disrupt heteronormative structures as they challenge exclusion and absence. The various modes of "opting out" provide a substantial opposition to the gender binary of male/female. They do so with the establishment of the Other, of the Third Sex. The social subjectivity evidenced in Souparnika's film, offers glimpses into a world in which transgressed individuals are transformed as they "opt out" of larger social dictates. Constituted by the expulsion from the body proper, this new queer body affirms a new world just beyond the norm we find in the hamam. As a commercially successful film that often accurately reproduces the stereotypical gazes, it also becomes a mode of resistance; and it is perhaps within this context, while challenging issues routinely faced by transgender individuals, that this particular film posits its most important stance against mainstream social values and definitions of being.
Principal Cast and Crew
Manjula/Vinayan (Manoj K. Jayan)
Kokila (Mahalakshmi)
Naik (Surendranatha Thilakan)
Jameela (Maniyanpilla Raju)
Priest (Sukumari)
Balu Menan (Jayakrishnan)
Balu Menan's wife (Asha Sarath)
Acknowledgement: Unless otherwise noted, all images were acquired under a Creative Commons license.
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