Shushila, the Hijra

 

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This is a portrait of Shushila which I took a few days ago inside her guru’s house in a little city located nearby Varanasi (Benaras) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Shushila is 35 years old, she was born in an Hindu family of the same town, she studied at school untill the age of 16 and she joined an hijra community when she was 17.
She didn’t become hijra (Hindi: हिजड़ा, Urdu: حجڑا), nor she was forced to be so, she was born like that as an hermaphrodite and therefore she is considered as a member of “the third gender”, neither man nor woman.
Like most of the hijras, she refers to herself linguistically as female, and wears women garments.

Becoming an hijra is a process of socialization into a “hijra family” through a relationship characterised as chela “student” to guru “teacher”, leading to a gradual assumption of femininity.
Typically each guru lives with at least five chelas; her chelas assume her surname and are considered part of her lineage.
Shushila’s guru is Sunita, a Muslim hijra, who has been teaching her to perform religious ceremonies at weddings and at the birth of babies, involving music, singing, and dancing.
Hijras are intended to bring good luck and fertility and they are most often uninvited to Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Jain family’s and even to Christian’s for Christmas.
Hijras are said to be able to do this because, since they do not engage in sexual activities, they accumulate their sexual energy which they can use to either bestow a boon or a bane.
It is said that hijras’ curse brings bad luck or infertility.

One day Shushila will become the guru of her community after Sunita’s death.
Sunita decided that it ill be like that and Shushila will follow exactly what her guru said, she will carry the same teaching with younger hijras.
It is nice to see that in this community Muslims and Hindus are living together and respecting their beliefs, their religion.

As I was asking, she told me that she was happy with her life, she said that in her society she wouldn’t have been able to do anything else so she was enjoying her life as an hijra.

I took many pictures of her, I said that I wanted natural poses, I was trying to show her soul like I did with her guru’s portraits.
With Sunita we tried to make her laugh as she wasn’t used at all to be in front of a camera and finaly I like this one which is far away to what I wanted.
After showing her she said she was happy of the result.

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Close Encounters of the Third Gender

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“The third sex is described as a natural mixing or combination of the male and female natures to the point in which they can no longer be categorized as male or female in the traditional sense of the word.
The example of mixing black and white paint can be used, wherein the resulting color, gray, in all its many shades, can no longer be considered either black or white although it is simply a combination of both.”
(From “Tritiya-Prakriti: People of the Third Sex” by Amara Das Wilhelm”

Shushila is an hijra, neither man nor woman, she belongs to a third gender, ensconced in tradition in India for years…
She is the chela (disciple) of Sunita, her guru and she will become guru as well the day her guru will leave this world…

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An Absolute Necessity

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“The work is an absolute necessity for me.
I can’t put it off, I don’t care for anything but the work; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once and I become melancholy when I can’t go on with my work.
Then I feel like a weaver who sees that his threads are tangled, and the pattern he had on the loom is gone to hell, and all his thought and exertion is lost.”
(From “Stranger on the Earth : A Psychological Biography of Vincent Van Gogh” (1996) by Albert J. Lubin, p. 22)

This is one of our handloom workshops in Varanasi (Benaras).
Varanasi weavers have to struggle with many issues since the industry collapsed fifteen years ago and half the workshops of the city had to close.
RED HALO has settled a program in order to help a few of them, it is a drop in the ocean but in our humble and limited way we are trying to maintain a few people to carry on this amazing heritage which remains in the Eternal city.

RED HALO is a collection of household linen based in Benaras (Varanasi – India) providing work to people who were living with difficulties and education to children.
“Like” the RED HALO page on Facebook and join this human adventure in Varanasi,www.facebook.com/redhalo.in

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Carrying You with my Blood

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“Extinguish my sight, and I can still see you;
plug up my ears, and I can still hear;
even without feet I can walk toward you,
and without mouth I can still implore.
Break off my arms, and I will hold you
with my heart as if it were a hand;
strangle my heart, and my brain will still throb;
and should you set fire to my brain,
I still can carry you with my blood.”
(From “The Book of Hours” by Rainer Maria Rilke)

This is a view of the Holy Ganges shot at dusk from Jatar ghat in Varanasi (Benaras).
Those bamboo sticks carry baskets with candles lifted up in order to tell the spirits to welcome the people who recently departed from life…

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Into the Answer

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“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. 
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, and live along some distant day into the answer. 
(From ” Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke)

This is a view of Scindia ghat shot from Anand’s boat at dusk along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
The Eternal city allows anyone to to live one’s way into the answer…

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As a Wild Hunter

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“With my mouth I speak slander, day and night.
I spy on the houses of others – I am such a wretched low-life !
Unfulfilled sexual desire and unresolved anger dwell in my body, like the outcasts who cremate the dead.
I live as a wild hunter, O Creator !”
(From the Guru Granth Sahib – the religious text of Sikhism)

This is a picture of the burning ghats of Manikarnika shot at sunset from a boat on the holy waters of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
Antyesti, the Last Rite, is an important Sanskara, sacrament of Hindu society
According Hinduism cremation is releases an individual’s spiritual essence from its transitory physical body so it can be reborn.
If it is not done or not done properly, it is thought, the soul will be disturbed and not find its way to its proper place in the afterlife and come back and haunt living relatives…

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The Balancing Color

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“The color of the object illuminated partakes of the color of that which illuminates it.”
(Leonardo da Vinci – Italian Renaissance polymath, 1452–1519)

This blueish tone of light green is called turquoise, the name comes from the French for Turkish.
This friendly and happy color is worn by many people in India.
In color psychology, this shade controls and heals the emotions creating emotional balance and stability.
It is a combination of blue and a small amount of yellow and it fits in on the color scale between green and blue.
It radiates the peace, calm and tranquility of blue and the balance and growth of green with the uplifting energy of yellow.
Turquoise recharges our spirits during times of mental stress and tiredness, alleviating feelings of loneliness.
Focussing on the color whether on a wall or clothing allows to feel instant calm and gentle invigoration, ready to face the world again…
Being the mid color between the extremes of red and violet, it is the color of balance, for the emotions, thoughts and speech.
Turquoise is calming yet invigorating, restoring depleted energies, it enhances the ability to focus and concentrate, assisting with clear thinking and decision-making, and the development of good organizational skills.
This shade also represents open communication from and between the heart and the spoken word.
It relates to the electronic age and the world of computers, and communication on a large scale.

This picture was shot in a little workshop in Varanasi (Benaras) held by a Muslim family who manufactures several fabrics for Red Halo.
Those turquoise threads are used in order to weave a traditional silk brocade on a handloom machine.
This traditional artcraft transmitted from generation to generation contributed to the fame of the oldest living city in the world.RED HALO is a collection of household linen based in Benaras (Varanasi – India) providing work to people who were living with difficulties and education to children.

“Like” the RED HALO page on Facebook and join this amazing human adventure in Varanasi,www.facebook.com/redhalo.in

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The Absolute and The Particular

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“All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory — of the absolute and of the particular.
Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction creamed from the general surface of different beauties.
The particular element in each manifestation comes from the emotions: and just as we have our own particular emotions, so we have our own beauty.”
(Charles Baudelaire – French Poet, 1821-1867)

I’ll never get tired of taking pictures of the Taj Mahal…
This is the absolute embodiment of everything on earth.

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One Eternal Sigh

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“Kingly power is like a cruel bolt of thunder,
Let that fade away like the blood-red sky at dusk,
Let just one eternal sigh remain like sadness in the sky
Wasn’t that all you’d ever asked for?
The glittering jewels cast their spell like an eternal magical mystery.
But even if that does vanish,
Let just one tear drop roll down the cheeks of Time;
The pure light of Taj Mahal.”
(Rabindranath Tagore – Indian Poet, Playwright and Essayist. Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, 1861–1941)

Endless passion, everlasting love, eternal sigh…the Taj Mahal should remain forever the essence of perfection…
However there is a threat over this image of Heaven as it could collapse within four years because wooden foundations are rotting.
( Read more at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2045183/Taj-Mahal-collap… )
Nowadays it is almost impossible to take this picture anymore as the army doesn’t allow to go to this side of the Yamuna river.

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The Creators’ Glory

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“Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator’s glory.”
(Emperor Shah Jahan)

It is said that Shah Jahan wrote himself this poem about the Taj Mahal that he built for Mumtaz Mahal, his favorite wife (Original Source: Mahajan, Vidya Dhar (1970). Muslim Rule In India. p. 200).
The Taj Mahal seen from the banks of river Yamuna might be a common dream for many but truly this stunning architectural beauty is second to none and each time I come there I simply love it a little more…

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