Detective fiction: Ambai’s private eye Sudha Gupta is on a mission to uncover Mumbai’s underbelly

There was a reason why he wanted Bahinabai and the Lord she worshipped, Vittal, to be his names. Bahinabai was a devotee who was closest to his heart. A Vittal devotee. He wanted his identity to be that of Bahinabai and her Vittal. Bahina had said she was ready to bear any pain in her body if it would help her reach her Vittal. He had had enough suffering in this man’s body. He had the greatest happiness the times he wore a sari. Stolen times. When nobody was around, he would wear a wild, turmeric-coloured sari with a wax-red border, decorate his forehead with kumkum powder, and walk around the house swaying his hips – what heaven that was!

Anumantha Jogappa, who would make the trip to Saundatti every year from Nipani, was the one who gave him the courage to face this. He had been dedicated to Goddess Yellamma. Dayaram, too, was a regular pilgrim to Saundatti every year. He liked the goddess Yellamma. He would find peace and satisfaction when spending time with the Jogappas.

Jogappas were not hijras. They were not those referred to as hijras or “alis: who were born with genital defects or whose male member was cut off by modern surgical methods or in the rough manner of long ago. They were dedicated to Goddess Yellamma. They were transvestites. Their penises did not hinder them in any way. Anumantha Jogappa would say, “To be male or female is in the mind alone. What connection does the physical body have with it?: He would tell Dayaram about Jogappas who were both male and female. There were those who would become Jogappas at the time of festivals for the goddess Yellamma and some other festivals and remain men at all other times. He would say that they could easily slip from male to female and female to male.

He would say that the body is just a jar singing a Bahinabai song. If the jar breaks, where does the space in it go? It mingles with the space outside it. The jar does not remain a jar anymore. So, the space inside it is also no longer there. It is nothing. He would say his body was the same; what was inside was neither male nor female. He feels that he is female. Then what does it matter how his body is shaped? He would explain that that was only a physical extension. Like one can go from one shore to another, it was possible to cross the body swimming across it. The body would turn into water and let you pass, he would say.

Dayaram did not understand those explanations. But he felt that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. His penis was something that he wanted to cut and fling away. He was Dayaram then. He wanted his external appearance to reflect the woman that he was inside. His body, which he felt weighed as much as a huge rock, would feel as light as a flower whenever he would wear a sari. Anumantha Jogappa understood his torment. He was the one who helped him reach a community of similar people in Mumbai.

It was then that Dayaram realised that to transform himself from a male to a female was a kind of suicide. A kind of death. And a kind of birth.

All the details emerged slowly. In huge torrents, and then in little trickles.

Dayaram’s parents had a very fraught relationship. The father was a drunkard; instead of farming the little land he had, he had dreams of living in a big city and so decided to move to Mumbai. The mother did not agree with that at all. She knew that he would live a dissipated life in the large city. So, when he sold a part of his little piece of land to buy a single-roomed 250-sq-ft flat in Mumbai, she insisted that the flat be bought in her name. He started driving a lorry for a living, something he had never done before.

She would constantly say that coming to Mumbai was the seed sown for their destruction. She was happy when Dayaram settled in Palghar but did not have a good opinion of Mangala, her daughter-in-law. Mangala constantly nagged her husband, Dayaram, saying, “Let us go to Mumbai.” She would tell her son every time she visited them in Palghar that Mangala spent all her time watching TV or going to the movies and neglected the children.

She particularly despised movies. Her daughter, who she had hoped and dreamt would study in Mumbai and become a teacher, met someone through her father and became a dancer, dancing as one among the crowd of extras in Hindi movies. As it was Mumbai, it was possible to keep this a secret. The daughter herself never mentioned it to anyone because she was afraid of her mother. The mother also kept away from all relatives.

When her husband had died of alcohol, and her daughter-in-law and elder grandson had died of disease, she expected that her son Dayaram, with his five-year-old son, would come and settle down in Mumbai and reform his sister.

That is when it happened.

Excerpted with permission from ‘A Room Measuring 250 Square Feet’ in The Death of a Sarus Crane: Sudha Gupta’s Adventures in Detection, Ambai, translated from the Tamil by Gita Subramanian, Speaking Tiger Books.