All India Hijda Sammelan

 

This is the venue where the function of the All India Hijda Sammelan was held at Parksite Vikhroli.
I had gone there on 21st May 2006 on a Sunday directly by Rickshah and dressed as a Sadhu, on reaching the site I tried to seek permission from the Hijda heads or Nayaks .
I was disallowed from shooting pictures of the Eunuchs and asked to leave the premises.
I still tried to shoot a few portraits, at another site and was lucky that I met Nitin Sonawane the photographer for Times of India and with his vouching for me I managed to get the required permission from kind Mr Santosh Shetty and Raju Shrivastav a restrauteur .
There were transgenders from all over India and neighbouring countries.
I was hijghly impressed with Priya hijda from Singapore.

Because of the All India Hijda Sammelan I became a known and trusted face when later I went to Ajmer Sharif for the Urus and met the Hijdas there.
Mona the Child Eunuch her foster Hijda mother her father Gopal Haji, Sohel, Basanti, Zeenath, Haji Bulundsheher the Shia Hijda..
Ajmer and Haji Malang are hijda pilgrimage centres , though for the Aravanis there is nothing bigger than Koovagam..
Than there is Bhaichura Mata ..
The Hijdas are a friendly race , proud of their transgender ethnicity ,devoted and very religious.
They are the only group that respect the Guru Parampara system..They have a hierarchy ,their laws rituals that are obeyed and punihment and fines are meted out to those hijdas who break them.
Among them , are another splinter group adhering the mysticism that comes with their sex , this esoteric group is known as the Hijda Bawas.
Beneath the Tatragadh mountains there is a tomb of the Hijda Saint and his biological son, a tek that the Hijdas never miss..

Ajmer Sharif is the road the Hijdas take during the annual celebrations of Khawajah Moinuddin Chishti..
You will see the most nubile the most beautiful hijdas and you might for a second …
be mesmerized by their androgynous beauty..

I had my soul divided at Ajmer Sharif, being the guest of Peersaab Fakhru Miya Hujra No6
I would be at his Hujra , and my mind with the Rafaees body piercers at Char Yaar and a part of it at Moti Katra where the Hijdas stayed.

I do not want to boast but God should be within you when you shoot the Hijda in the nakededness of his spirtual soul, and the Rafaees who are not to overtly kind to photographers.
The Rafaees are akin to the Naga Sadhus , but wear clothes and expeert in martial arts..
I met a Hijda Rafaee shot him too.

Because I have to attend to my shop, a one man show its impossible to shirk responsibilty and run to shoot Hijdas.
This is one part of me that does not pay, I do it for free ..

I dont sell pictures nor do I begrudge those who sell pictures..

I do not even have a single poem on my person in writing everything of me is online..

Once love too was online ..

http://www.firozeshakir.com