Chapter 4 - Struggling Period
One should face struggles and cross hurdles to find the path to reach the destination they belong to. It's quite common in everyone's life. But the struggles faced by a Transgender person would be way more than a normal person. To know about one's orientation and exploring one's physical, emotional and mental changes, it takes a lot of time to stand for themselves. But the period in between knowing about themselves and standing for themselves would be completely difficult. The path could be tortured in every possible way. Hannah's life wasn't an exception in this case. Because at the end of the day, she found that she was in a wrong body and hopefully desired to transform into the body she belonged to. After all, she was lucky enough to know about herself at such a young and tender age. But she wasn't lucky enough to transform herself into someone else who exactly she wanted to be. It would always be hard for those people who know about themselves clearly, but it takes an enormous period to make people understand and accept them the way they are. Unfortunately, India is not a good place to get easily accepted people because of its diversified cultural traditions and various types of mindsets in society.
After she got to know about her sexual orientation from Joanna in her 10th grade. She felt confused about the dilemma of accepting herself the way she was. After the completion of exams, Joanna left for London. Hannah badly missed Joanna's presence because she was the only one who got attached to her. Life has to go on anyway. It was her college days, which were drastically opposite to her school days. Hannah was a rebellious kid with her hidden masculine energy. But she was no more that kid who didn't know that she was a transgender. Hannah started treating herself as a boy deep inside of her. She used to hardly hang out with other college mates. But God always gives a new thing or companionship when he takes away the other one.
Rachel, a fun-loving girl who loved to explore the whole city of Bangalore and kind of a good acquaintance to hang out with. Rachel and Hannah met each other in their college while they were studying 11th and 12th grade. Hannah's college days were a little struggling though because she didn't come out totally to her family, friends and the society. But she still used to get bullied for the way she used to walk and talk. That was one of the reasons, Hannah lost her hope in coming out to anyone in her life. She always used to get bullied for her looks and her rapport with other girls. She was masculine and hence she loved to hang out with girls mostly. Rachel got to know about her sexual orientation and accepted her the way she was. She didn't judge her and pass comments on her hidden sexual orientation. Instead, she was the one who used to take Hannah with her out to explore whole Bangalore. They used to go everywhere to shop, eat, roam and be themselves. Rachel was the one girl who pumped, confidence to Hannah in an amazing way. Rachel made Hannah to accept herself more and to come out of the closet. After their college days, Rachel has moved to Mumbai for her graduation.
Again, Hannah has left alone one more time in her life. This is what happens in real life. We will be always left alone at any point in time. But for some people like Hannah, it happens now and then. But Hannah didn't lose her confidence that has boosted by Rachel in her college days. She has successfully joined in her Graduation in Bangalore University as a Literature and Psychology student. She was good in her studies and she nailed many university exams back then. Career-wise, she was always successfully being a high scorer in school, college, and University too. But, she was a degraded and deteriorated soul inside her body. She couldn't be able to handle her male hormones in the body. She has decided to come out to the family. After she got into her university, she started giving hints to her family members. As she belonged to Muslim Family, she got too many restrictions regarding her dressing style and lifestyle too. But she wanted to lead her life exactly like her elder brothers.
She has expressed her views to her friendly mother one day, regarding her feelings towards other girls and how she wanted to dress herself up as a boy in a Kurta-Pyjamas instead of sporting a burkha. She also told her mom to allow her to cut her hair. But her mom has reacted in a very loud yet against Hannah's wishes. Her mother doubted her sexual orientation and asked her about her interests. Being a mother, she couldn't be able to take it from the only girl of her family. She was completely confused. Deep inside her mother has understood her interests and bodily changes. But, her mother strictly restricted her wishes and asked her to leave all her wishes and be like a normal girl. Unlike other girls, Hannah didn't take it smoothly, instead, she started behaving in her way and started exhibiting her masculine side to the society.
She got badly bashed by her father when he came to know about her changes. For her father, family's pride was more important than Hannah's life. But to the contrary, her eldest brother used to support her little sister to get transformed herself into a male. But he also couldn't be able to help her because of the family restrictions. Hannah's eldest brother Fareed was happily married and used to take care of family business. He was sort of open-minded person and always stood for Hannah, no matter what. Just because, he was the only person who could understand Hannah, he didn't get any support to let Hannah lead her own life. Hannah's mother used to support her invisibly which was of no use. Farook, the elder brother of Hannah, was the biggest hurdle to her in her family. Farook was a typical Muslim brother, who didn't let his sister think about herself. He hardly respected Hannah ever. He has married two women in his life. He also used to stay jointly with the whole family. He always restricted her and never liked her choice of getting transformed into a man. He took it as a mental disease and always used to bash Hannah every time she used to take the topic out in her family.
Farook's second wife also got to know Hannah's conditions. She got attracted to Hannah's masculine outcome at home and how she used to fight against all her odds. One fine evening, Farook found when his second wife was kind of getting closer to his sister in an intimate way. Hannah couldn't be able to sense her brother's second wife's sexual intention. Before Hannah came to know that, Farook has pulled his sister from her room to hall by holding her hair in his hand. Hannah was helpless and wasn't guilty. She became the victim of someone's mistake. Farook has behaved literally like a wild animal that day with his sister. He has called everyone in the family outside and told them that Hannah was behaving inappropriately with his second wife and urging her to cheat on him. That was ridiculous to hear. He put all the blame on his sister in front of the whole family just to keep his wife away from his sister. Instead of controlling his wife, he has taken advantage of his blood relationship with Hannah. When he was about to bash her more, Fareed has stopped him and warned him not to beat their sister ever in life. That day, Hannah's mother and eldest brother have protected her from Farook.
In the same family, one man has protected a woman while the other has bashed her.
One man could understand the deeper meaning of Islam and hence, he respected the opinions of a woman and tried to protect her. Whereas the other one was just following Islam for religious sake, hence he couldn't be able to understand women and tried to control and restrict them from there own will. Understanding religion is different from the following religion blindly and misunderstanding the original meaning behind the Prophet's words.
That was the same day where Hannah has to hear about the most unexpected thing from her family. Except for her mother and eldest brother, everyone else in the family has asked Hannah to lead a life like a girl to stay in the home, if not they have warned her to move out of their home without any second option. Hannah was shocked, broke down and completely fallen to the floor. She had no other option to leave the home. That particular day was the most painful in her life.
Though she faced a lot of struggles from her own family and society, she has managed to become the topper of the University. Personally and Educationally, Hannah's struggling period was almost there for her whole graduation. Her graduation days were the most painful, struggling, and endeavoring. And those were the days which turned her life towards her destination after making her face a lot of hurdles. Those were the days, where Hannah met her soulmate for the first time. But, that wasn't easy dealing her soulmate being a non-transformed Transgender...
#everydayqueerlife #transformed #blogseries #storiesuntold #strugglingperiod #nakedtruths #darksecrets