I had read only few pages of the Mother, when my eyes hooked on this bookmarker. Before I could complete Mother, which I haven’t done till date, the story of Manobi, India’s first transgender Pricipal, got scribbled on my psyche.
It become a meaningful pursuit of knowing and reading something and gaining a perspective that I wouldn’t have done otherwise, had the Mother and the bookmark not been placed into such proximity.
A transcendental journey on which she takes along with such honesty and profundity. Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey penned this candid biography.
In the preface Manobi highlights her message: ‘Education: if we learn, all our problems will be solved. ‘ She dedicates this to all those who humiliated her and called her subhuman, pushing her to the brink of her life, enabling her though, to find herself and discover her way to life and inspire all those alike her and help them win.
The memories of Manobi and understanding her came alive when Aparna maam shared the link of Celia’s life, an insightful and heart touching story of her life.
The flashback of turning the pages of this book, making a journey within as if with the author, understanding her quest, looking at her conflict, exploring her identity crisis within, probing the social norms and its boundaries of acceptance and rejections, asking why it is.
Manobi begins by sharing how the euphoria of her father was palpable when he named her Somnath , who was born after two sisters, and for him, her birth was as if Shiva’s blessings. Manobi, much to her surprise found, when she didn’t exactly remember, she was different. Born as a boy, identifying himself as a feminine in gender.
Hailing her, the family called her Lakshmi, for she was a boy bringing luck to him and to the entire family. And then this difference gradually started accentuating when Manobi would ornate and clad in the frocks of the sisters. This metamorphosis started sharpening as the years progressed until her feminity expressed through all the possible ways.
Love form family, a journey within, knowing herself and society, facing humiliation and rejections, going past her struggles and yearning, gaining education, earning laurels and accolades for herself and her community, bringing change, transcending her limited self, she implored to the Thakur ji and he blessed her with life’s joy and understanding.
Today, a day offered and dedicated to Thakur ji and understanding the identities of the self with Manobi.
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