I first heard it long before I saw her: two sharp claps, disjoint echoes reverberating through the carriage, cutting through the drone of conversations and the clatter of steel wheels. In an instant, phones slipped into pockets, chatter trailed off, and commuters lifted their heads. That double clap is the Chakke’s signature herald: an auditory beacon announcing their arrival and commanding a respectful hush.
She stepped aboard with the
easy confidence of someone born to these rails. There was no plea in her
outstretched hand - no tremor of shame - only the quiet insistence of a
sovereign demanding her due. As she advanced down the aisle, most passengers
reached into their wallets without a word. Ten and twenty‑rupee notes fluttered
into her palm, offered willingly as if buying not charity but a shield against
the day’s coming storms.
After each offering, she
pressed her fingers lightly against the donor’s forehead: first across the
brow, then near the crown, bestowing a blessing in place of thanks. That
invocation felt like a small benediction, a private moment of grace amid
Mumbai’s relentless hustle. For a heartbeat, the city’s frenzy: the screech of
announcements, the glare of overhead lights, the crush of bodies, receded.
Commuters closed their eyes, savored that sacred pause, then watched her glide
onward, hand outstretched to the next passenger.
Legally, Hijra - India’s third
gender - gained formal recognition in April 2014, when the Supreme Court
declared that fundamental rights must extend equally to transgender citizens,
granting them self‑identification and reservation in education and employment.
Yet social acceptance lags far behind legal mandates. Many Hijre are cast out
by family and community, leaving them with few options beyond traditional
roles: blessing births and weddings, begging (‘dheengna’), or surviving as sex
workers (‘raarha’).
In most Indian cities, the Hijra
who turn to sex work face harrowing violence: routine police extortion, forced
unprotected encounters, and the threat of arrest under antiquated laws like
Section 377. This often leads to a hardened culture where the Hijras try to
harass the society back. The asking for alms is not just a voluntary assertion
of existence; it’s a fight for acknowledgement. A 2018 study found that police
in Mumbai and other major cities regularly extort transgender sex workers,
driving them to riskier practices that heighten HIV and other health risks. Yet
on the local trains, you’ll never see a Chakka raise her voice or brandish a
threat. They recognize a head‑shake for “no” and simply step away - an unspoken
code of respect that Mumbai’s commuters have learned to honor.
That silent understanding is
hard‑won. Mockery is a line that cannot be crossed: laugh at them, whisper
jokes, or snatch away their dignity, and you’ll feel the chill in their gaze - a
quiet fury more unnerving than any shout. But decline to give, offer only
ridicule, and you risk more than social censure; you risk scoring an enemy who
carries her community’s collective memory of every indignity ever suffered.
Each morning on the Mumbai
trains, the Chakke transform the carriage into a living theatre of resilience.
Their presence is woven from the crazy stupid things that the city demands - dancing
for small fees at neighborhood weddings, reciting scripted blessings for what
feels like pocket change, or offering companionship for an indeterminate cost.
These aren’t desperate acts; they’re assertions of identity, fierce
declarations that even at society’s margins, they deserve space, respect, and
recompense.
Beneath those claps and
blessings lies an entire social universe: guru‑chela households governed by
elders (gurus) who provide shelter, guidance, and rudimentary education in
Hijra Farsi; clandestine networks that circulate news of police crackdowns,
safe routes through the city, and sources of donated food or clothing; and
informal collectives that offer legal referrals and crisis support for those
facing violence or eviction.
When the Chakka step off at the
next station - two soft claps of their shoes on the platform - there’s a
collective exhale. Phones reappear, conversations resume, and the carriage
returns to its usual din. Yet something fundamental has shifted. Each blessing,
each ten‑rupee note, has been a tiny act of rebellion: a refusal to be erased,
a ratification of personhood in a city that often reduces its inhabitants to
numbers and deadlines.
In Mumbai, a city defined by
motion and survival, these moments of stillness matter, Chakke remind us that
dignity is not a passive entitlement but a fragile covenant, maintained by
countless small exchanges. Their morning rounds are more than a plea for alms -
they are a testament to the human capacity for resilience, community, and quiet
defiance in the face of systemic exclusion. And in that suspended second - when
a palm meets a forehead and the carriage falls silent - you glimpse the true
pulse of this metropolis: a heartbeat that sings, against all odds, for every
soul brave enough to claim it.
