- Title: Abducted into the Third Gender
- Subtitle: 180 Degrees Turn
Series: Hijra, The Third Gender - Author: Yulia Yu. Sakurazawa
- Gender Swap Type: MTF
[Introduction]
The main character is a big cheese star son abducted for ransom. Instead of shelling down the money, his father intimates the police. The criminal mafia has its own way of avenging this 180 degree turn. This, among other things, entails turning him into a girl.
Will he be able to endure the series of 180 degree turns done by the mafia, his lover, the society, and most shocking of all, by his own body?
[About “Hijra, The Third Gender” series]
This is the 6th book of “Hijra, the Third Gender” series. Each story is independent and is about “Hijra” which means neither men nor women. “Hijra, The Third Gender” is a series of autobiography fiction. The narrator of each story tells you about her/his life – how and why she/he was thrown into the third gender and about her/his experience.
Hijra means a transgender individual adopted by a guru in the well organized transgender community believing in the same goddess and living in feminine attire. Hijra is referred to as “the third gender.” Rules and ceremonies for adoption, initiation, castration, etc. are well defined in the hijra community. Once you get nirvan (castration ceremony often done without anesthesia) you cannot go back to your former self.
[Characters]
Sasha is a 12 year old star son who is abducted by a criminal organization for ransom. He is a pleasantly plump boy of average height. Following a volte-face done by his father, the criminals cut off Sanjay’s testicles.
Sagar Kapoor is the 45 year old father. Sagar is a film-star and is rolling in wealth. He is conventionally handsome (possesses gazelle’s eyes, an aquiline nose and well-formed lips) and has an attractive masculine voice. Sagar is devoted to his wife, Seema, and son. Following his son’s abduction, Sagar does everything in his power to find him.
Simha is the 45 year old leader of the criminal mafia that abducts Sasha. Simha’s Indo-Thai lineage gives him a unique appearance: he is tall, dusky and big-boned like Indian men; but has delicate high-cheek bones, small tip-tilted eyes and straight hair like his Thai mother. He is a nasty character, yet fatally attractive and charismatic.
Seema is Sanjay’s slim, delicate, fragile, loving mother. Unable to withstand receiving her son’s severed testicles; she goes into a shock and eventually dies.
Sheetal is Sagar Kapoor’s beautiful, hard-boiled, 22 year old second wife. She is an aspiring actress who marries Sagar just to further her ambitions of becoming a film star.
Mohit is 21 years old and the son of famous (deceased) cinematographer, S.Devadutt. He is of average height and build, and has a deceptively pleasant face. Mohit’s mercenary ambition (of seeking a loan to set up a photo studio) drives him to woo and marry Sasha.
[Sample text – less than 10% of the story is shown due to restrictions of KDP]
Chapter 1 – Whisked Off!
Life took a dramatic turn when I was whisked off. ‘That’s him, the podgy bastard: Grab him’ were the only words I heard before I was gagged and pulled into a moving vehicle. Apart from the hideous-looking rotten- toothed fellow who had grabbed me, there were four other men in the car. They smirked viperously at me.
‘Phone his film-star bastard of a dad’, the scar-faced thug goaded the one who had dognapped me. Yes, you’ve heard them right. My old man is a film star. Sagar Kapoor is his name. He is a real top dog in Bollywood, the Hindi film industry. Gets paid 40 crore per flick, plus a share of the film’s profits. He also likes making public appearances and dancing at weddings. Rakes in a mean bit of moolah (money) from the above. He also gets many an ad commercial. At 45, he was the highest paid Bollywood star.
‘Now, we’re putting a call across to rich daddy-O, Sanju baba’, the one with the pierced lip told me in a saccharine sweet voice. Goose-bumps rose on my prepubescent arm. These fellows knew my name–Sanjay. Sanjay Kapoor. Sanju. Sanju baba. A pampered 12 year old star kid who went to the most expensive school in Mumbai. And lived in a large bungalow in Juhu. A little guy who attended Filmfare, IIFA, National Screen and Stardust—in short, every glitzy glam award, with his dad and mom. The celeb kid who traveled every two months to exotic locations. And got to splurge quite a bit.
This wasn’t a random kidnapping. They hadn’t just picked me off the street. Thorough home- work had obviously been done.
‘I can’t possibly call from the cell phone, yaar’ the one that grabbed me bristled irritably. ‘The bastard police-waalas will sniff us out in a jiffy’. I held my breath as they drove me through the dingiest lanes of Mumbai. It made a sophisticated boy like me want to throw up a bit. ‘Hold your juices in, Sanju baba’ the goon with pockmarked, reptilian skin told me kindly. The kindness had unmistakable undercurrents of the ominous beneath it. l shot a glance at his burly powerful-looking arms. They looked like they could crush an iron pole with effortless ease. Garroting my flabby neck would have been child’s play to him. I held my bile in with effort.
Presently, the rotten toothed one got off the vehicle. I noticed that he has got off at a PCO or one of those public telephone booths. ‘It’s out of order’ he returned looking dejected and kicked an empty cola can lying on the road. ‘We’ll have to go with the cell phone’. ‘Use mine’ a new voice chipped in. It emanated from the fellow driving the vehicle. It’s funny I hadn’t noticed him before. It could be because he had a rather quiet air about him. Appearance-wise, he doesn’t look too lethal. He still seemed to be in his teens and has a lot of tell-tale acne as if to prove this point. His voice also didn’t sound too dangerous. However, his arms said it all. Like Pock-mark’s, they seemed capable of wringing my neck as easily as a young chicken’s.
Currently, the rotten toothed one dialed a number. I cast a surreptitious eye and found that he was dialing my father’s mobile. ‘Saale ne switch off karke rakha hai’ he turned to tell his comrades ‘the bastard has switched his goddamn phone off!’. He then dialed the landline number. It was uncanny how these people knew all our numbers. It was obvious that they had done their home-work very well.
I heard the land line ring. Someone picked it up. I recognized the voice as Vinod Uncle’s. Vinod Mehta happened to be my father’s main manager cum secretary (a big guy like my dad has umpteen secretaries) Vinod is a bespectacled, gangling guy round who was probably about 50 years old at that time. His hair is thick (thicker than my dad’s who routinely gets hair treatments done) and graying at the temples. He had got a daughter of 16 whom I used to give the glad eye from time to time.
‘Yes, please’ he’s right here, I heard Vinod Uncle say.
My father, with his acclaimed deep theatrical voice, came on line. I could almost see him from where I was sitting: his right leg crossed over the left and his free hand running through his recently woven hair. He is quite an eye candy, my dad: with his ‘perfect’ height and physique, and conventionally handsome features. His gazelle’s eyes, shapely aquiline nose and cupid-bow lips have the whole country swooning over them. Many people from outside the country like him too. People said I looked like my dad, except I was still to lose my puppy-fat. It wasn’t as if I was fat or anything, just presently plump.
‘Hello, Sagar Kapoor here’ dad presently said in a baritone.
‘Hey, Sagar-bhai’, Mr. Rotten tooth spoke to him in a voice so matter-of-fact, that it was scary ‘We have got your son here—in the Red Street area. Drop 40 crores (about US$6.3 million) near the 1st big banyan and he’s all yours. Else we’ll slice him alive and parcel you his bits and pieces’.
I could visualize my dad. Beads of sweat had probably started accumulating on his smooth forehead. ‘Please don’t harm Sanju, I beg you. I promise to arrange for the money’ he said before saying ‘but may we come down a wee bit, you know what I mean?’
‘For God’s sake, dad!’ I silently screamed. My father had his heart in the right place, but he was too much of a business-man for my liking (and safety).
Mr. Rotten Tooth echoed my sentiments. ‘Your son’s life is at stake and you are negotiating?’ he exclaimed, incredulous. ‘He gets paid 40 crores per film and dilly-dallies to pay the same when his own son is in danger’ scoffed Mr. Pierced Lip ‘Stingy bastards—these film-waalas!’.
‘Okay, okay….I’ll arrange for the money’ I heard my father say. ‘But don’t harm my son, please’.
‘Okay-dokey’ Mr. Rotten Tooth said in a chilling sing-song voice. He then hung up.
‘Daddy dear to your rescue eh, honey?’ Mr. Pockmark caressed my upper-lip. Instinctively, I bit his hand and he hit me hard, very hard, across the face. ‘You son-of-a-bitch!’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Behaves like a short-fused cur!’ one of his associates observed.
‘Hey, be soft on him’ Mr. Rotten Tooth tried to placate his chums ‘His old man will hand over the money only if sonny-boy’s in tip-top condition’.
I was treated like a king for the next forty minutes or so. Then all hell broke loose.
‘His motherfucker of father has informed the police as well as alerted the media!’ Mr. Pockmark spat. ‘And the police are already trying to trace our call’. I wondered how the hoodlums had come to know. They had been able to detect the deceit. I also realized that they were mindful of the slightest movement of my dad and the police. My guess was that they had installed a tracker app inside my house landline as well as dad’s cell phone. And inside the police station too . The only way they could have managed to do this would have been to get one of their men to pose as a police officer. Alternately, they might have bribed someone at the police station and my house to install the app. ‘This is most likely’ I thought in my mind. An inside job. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. But who? Prem, Preetam, Vinod Uncle?
‘The phone network operator is zeroing in on us’ Scarface informed the rest. It’s time for us to scoot. The next three hours were a spin around the city to lead the police a merry dance. The police obviously failed to reach the nifty scoundrels. ‘We’re safe’ Pieced Lip finally heaved a sigh of relief. ‘However, Sagar Kapoor has done a 180 degree turn. By promising to bring the money and then outwitting us by informing the police’ Pockmark said before swearing– ‘We’ll pay him back with his own coin’. There was no mistaking the menace in his voice.
They came back to the Red Street. Now, I must tell you that Red Street is a notorious red light area in Mumbai milling with gangs, pimps and prostitutes. Normally, children of big cheese never know about this area, but I did because a scene of one of my dad’s movies was shot here and I had accompanied him on that particular shoot. ‘Sagar, this is no place to bring a child!’ the director of the film, who also happened to be my dad’s best friend, had chided him. ‘He was free and insisted on coming with me’, my father had grinned sheepishly ‘What would I do?’
Presently, I was yanked by the arm and dragged into one of the dilapidated buildings. Prostitutes—many not much older than me—stood and stared with their mouths open. They obviously didn’t have a clue as to what’s going on. Even if they did, they wouldn’t have dared to utter a word. The pimps would have gang-raped them and beaten them to pulp.
The hooligans took me to a cubbyhole of a room on the first floor. The walls were damp (probably the benediction of leakage from one of the bathrooms on the second floor) and covered with mucky green moss. Men’s sweaty clothing was clumsily piled on a rack. Beside it, lay a ramshackle mat. A battered TV set sat on a side shelf. The cubicle was reeking with the unbearable stench of urine emanating from the attached toilet. From a corner of the wall, a lizard went ‘Cluck cluck cluck’ as if in dour disapproval of the nasty odor.
Rotten Teeth handcuffed me and tied me to a post. Pierced Lip yanked my pants down and pinches my genitals hard. He cackled as I cried out aloud. ‘Hurts doesn’t it, Sanju baba’ he gloated sadistically.
Pockmark advanced with a razor sharp knife in hand. ‘Your father did a U-turn’ he said in an baneful voice ‘Now it’s our turn to do the same’. He made two 2 cms scars on one of my scrota with surgical precision. Then he chopped off my left testicle. I was yelping like a slaughtered pig by now.
Scarface procured a cardboard box from somewhere. He padded the inside with multi-coloured sponge. He placed my severed testicle on it almost lovingly, and decorated it with a beautiful red rose. Candy, confetti and chocolate were placed all around in a ghastly simulation of ornamentation. Scarface then proceeded to gift wrap the box with glitzy red paper and tied a pink ribbon around it daintily. ‘A little valentine day gift for daddy’ he said coyly.
I had forgotten. Today was February 14th, the day on which the entire world celebrated love. Ironically, on this day, I had become a victim of the agents of hate.
‘Your father didn’t take us seriously’ Pockmark said in an ill-boding voice ‘He assumed we were some amateurs putting across a prank call’.
‘However, we are aces in the field’ young pimples took over ‘An organized criminal mafia—with a head honcho. No one can outwit us. Not the police. Not your sisterfucker of a dad’.
To give the devils their due, they cleaned my wound with spirit, applied an antiseptic ointment on it and dressed it with cotton and tape.
***
I was woken up the next morning by journalistic cacophony blaring from the television set. A noisy reporter was conducting a panel discussion on ‘Children of Big Shots Kidnapped for Ransom’. The trigger for the discussion was, of course, my abduction that had transpired only the previous day. The irony of the situation was that it had become a subject of erudite arm chair theorizing even before I had been found. ‘These motherfuckers are into words rather than action’, I thought angrily ‘No wonder this goddamn country is still so backward’.
The news channels also flashed footages of my dad. I didn’t recognize him at first—there were prominent dark circles under his eyes. His hair, bereft of its daily application of dye, had quite a few greys. My father seemed to have aged by 10 years in a span of less than 24 hours. I had never seen him like this in public. His publicist usually took good care to see that superstar Sagar Kapoor appeared to his best advantage during his public appearances. After all, the box office collections depended on a superstar’s image.
I soon found out the reason behind my dad appearing old and haggard. The camera close-ups feasted on a certain box with horrified fascination. The red gift-wrap paper and the pink ribbon lay crumpled in a corner. The camera delved deep inside the box and displayed the contents stuffed in it for the benefit of the viewers. Soon they came in sight: the multi-coloured sponge, confetti, candy and last but not the least, my poor severed testicle. So, my father’s ‘Valentine’s Day Gift’ had reached him.
Abducted into the Third Gender: 180 Degrees Turn (Hijra, the Third Gender)