Book: Invisible men
Author: Nandini Krishnan
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 497; Price: Rs 699
This very subject needs deft and delicate handling because it's directly related to the anatomical sensitivity of an individual or a group of 'specifically homogeneous' (a euphemism for eunuchs) people. But the author has dealt with it in a manner that a reader will be compelled to think over the subject matter with a genuine sense of empathy.
This is an innate physiological mishap a eunuch has to suffer all the time in all societies across the 'civilised' world, esp. in India. The erroneous physical entrapment is something that acts as a dead albatross around the necks of the transwomen/transmen and in general, all the transgenders as there're different levels of incomplete and abortive gender permutations among these unfortunate people.
It's far greater and complex than mere gender identity. It's a psycho-sexual-genital aberration that transgender, esp. transmen, have to face. It's even beyond Freudian ' Penis Envy.'
These people don't require our patronising sympathy and pity. They don't want society's condescending attitude. They want the acceptance of what they're endowed with or what they can become in quest of their ever-elusive identity.
They need empathy of understanding, full-fledged presence and surety of their existence. The existential crisis nature cruelly exposed them to, shouldn't be their inexorable fate. An accident of birth can't be their collective or eventual destiny.
With real life examples, mythological references and in-depth case studies, Nandini has written a brilliant book. Finally, this book transcends transgenders to become the Bible for a marginalised community.
