I was returning back home from my workplace, usually I travel in metro but that day I decided to board a bus. I was standing on bus stand waiting for my bus when I saw her.
This was my first encounter so close to a transwomen as usually my parents don’t let me go near to them. This was the opportunity for me to go and talk to her know about her, her life her daily routine, her like dislikes and most importantly her daily struggle for survival with the mindset our society has towards her.
When I saw her all the flashes of times when my parents kept me away from them, all the stereotypical thoughts they have engraved inside me making me fear them came to my mind like a movie. I have always thought what is there fault if they look a bit different and because of which they are outcast from the society, denied the most basic right of education, a good job, a better life with dignity.
She was talking to two three males in whose eyes I could see the flirt and the lust for her body. And I knew they were just here to use her once again and then throw like some garbage.
Now the question is why even after standing there for fifteen minutes, missed my bus just to observe her I couldn’t gather the courage to meet her. At that moment my feet just refused to move towards her. Well I guess, since last 23 years I have been told not to talk to these people and now this has become so much routed inside me in my subconscious mind that I just couldn’t move. Now When I am back home her face her actions the way she was conversing and handling those guys has stayed in my mind.
After this incidence now I know I won’t miss the chance like I did this time and really pray that our society will really move forward to accommodate them with us. A day when I will go back home someday with a colleague who belongs to the third gender and working with me with the same dignity.