When people use derogatory terms for transgender humans, they don’t realise how it stings their souls. Much worse treatment is meted out to them. Imagine a child, barely 10 years old, being slapped by family elders for wanting to know why she was called a eunuch by schoolmates – it’s so cruel an act it sounds almost unreal. It doesn’t stop at that. The grandmother pulls down the child’s trousers just to prove to neighbours that she was indeed a boy. 

“Yes, I was born a boy, my grandmother named me Mayadhar,” shares Meera.

That child grew up to become a person widely admired. While her achievements fill up media space today, they have come with untold hardships. It would be an understatement to say that life was tough for her ever since her birth on 12 February 1981 in the family of Mallika and Arthabandhu. Both were as strict with their child’s upbringing as in following social customs and norms.

Meera was always a star student, her principal’s favourite, bagging awards in academics, dance performances, as well as speeches, somewhat helping her ignore the harassment. Later, it was this doggedness and determination to live with dignity that would pull her out of the morass.

She was in her early teens when her family moved to Bhubaneshwar. She joined a dance school primarily for three reasons: dance for her was an outlet; it did not follow gender norms; and men learning this art form were not frowned upon. And it was here that she – for the first time – found empathy, understanding, and support in a fellow student.

But the relief was short-lived. “One day, my father noticed a hint of colour on my lips. I must not have wiped off my lipstick completely.” What ensued was mayhem. That evening, 15-year-old Meera left home with her lipsticks and nail paints and around Rs. 300 that she had saved from dance shows.

“I had walked out with a resolve to earn respectably,” she says. For a year, she worked as a daily wager at construction sites, returning home with her arms hurting. “My first day’s earnings were a grand Rs. 35,” she laughs.

An incident of sexual harassment ended her tenure there and she became a courier person. “I would try my best to look masculine, but people would still complain to my boss. I then worked for a travel agency and was soon invited back into the family because I was assisting them financially,” she recalls.

In 2005, Meera was forcibly married off to a girl. To convince them of her manhood, she started a travel agency, Maa Gauri Tour & Travels, from a rented office. She kept it sailing for two years but things started going downhill soon. The marriage too imploded. The agency shut down. Meera was bogged by debt.

Defeated and dejected, she left for Mumbai in February 2007 where she embraced the hijra culture and learnt about it. Unfortunately, she too had to beg and resort to sex work for a few days. “The indignity I felt is indescribable. This was against my ideologies, family values, and capabilities,” she bemoans.