The Context
Indian Transgenders are referred as Hijras, Pavaiya, Fatadas in North & Westen India and they known as Aravanis in South India. They have virtually no safe spaces, not even in their families where they are to be protected, from prejudice and abuse. often they are treated brutally in public spaces, police stations, prisons and even in their homes.
The main factor behind the violence is that society is not able to come to terms with the fact that Aravanis do not conform to the accepted gender divisions. Most Aravanis come from lower middle-class economic background, which makes them susceptible to harassment by the police. The discrimination based on their class and gender makes the Aravani’s community one of the most dis-empowered groups in Indian society.
Transgender communities have existed in most parts of the world with their own local identities, customs and rituals. They are called Baklas in the Philippines, Berdaches among American Indian tribes, serrers in Africa and Hijras, Jogappas, Jogtas, Shiv-Shaktis and Aravanis in South Asia. The Hijra/Aravani community in India, which has a recorded history of more than 4,000 years, was considered to have special powers because of its third-gender status. It was part of a well-established `eunuch culture' in many societies, especially in West Asia, and its members held sanctioned positions in royal courts.
For many Aravanis, sex work is the only option because no one is willing to employ them because of their gender identity. Even as commercial sex workers, Aravanis are the most vulnerable group as they are placed right at the bottom of the hierarchy of sex workers. This results in their having little bargaining power and being unable to ensure that their customers practice safe sex. They are also at risk of violence both from customers and the police.
About the film
The life-long social entrapment of many Aravanis into sex work in countries like India reinforces the stigmatization of their entire community as outcasts there, creating a veritable caste system of transgender sex workers. The ongoing entrapment of one in every few hundred transgender kids into becoming willing sex objects for the local males thus works to the great advantage of the patriarchal society in which it occurs.
This fate befalls them simply because they are transgender, and thus see becoming a Aravani as being far preferable to the worse fate (to them) of remaining male. Since prostitution is "illegal" in most traditional societies, the police become a state-supported mechanism for enforcing sex worker traditions: The police do not protect the women from abuse, but instead victimize them if they don't keep in line or if they protest against the system. As a result, the police are the source of many abuses against transgender community in India, as elsewhere.
Unsettling Memories is a docu-drama about the lives of nine transgender people. The film portrays nine different situations encountered by the members of transgender community with the mainstream society and the issues confronting their gender, existence and identity.
The sequences portrayed by the actors in the film is based on their real life incidents that transpired during the course of their transitioning while acquiring this new identity as an transgender person. The real life experiences of the transgender individuals were synthesized together in the form of theatrical performance and performed by them to communicate and create an awareness regarding their living conditions to the mainstream society.
The film was based on the scripts of the individual experiences and enacted by them even though no one is an professional theater artists but they felt by putting together a cohesive story would enable them to communicate the key concerns and issues that are constantly faced by the individuals of the transgender community everyday while engaging with the mainstream society.
Kannadi Kali Kuzhu is the only theatre group of Aravanis in India and this film “Unsettling Memories” is the first drama performed to public by the group to communicate their issues and concerns with the society.