One may not understand the pain of separation, till it comes to that. One definitely can not understand the joy of motherhood without experiencing it. And no one can understand the anxiety of being different, till you are born ‘different’. Hence a difficult question.
I remember as a little girl, a cooking lady would come over to our house to help out my mother, but she wasn’t like my mother. She had more manly features, her walk was different, her voice was heavier. I could never muster up the courage even as a kid to ask my mother why Jamila was the way she was. I got my answer later in life, which gave me a sense of loss in understanding as to why transgenders are almost outcasts in our society. Because I remember Jamila made the best parathas known to me!!
While we had been discussing bringing up this topic in our blog for quite sometime, as meant to ask some questions we never found answers to, watching an ad on YouTube this morning inspired this blog post (One of the reasons I became a blogger was that I could talk about things how I wanted and how I felt).
You must have guessed that I’m talking about the Vicks ad going viral as we speak, which touches on two taboo topics of our society, adoption and transgenders. The true story of Gauri and Gayatri Sawant is so extraordinary that it makes one question everything we deem normal when it comes to family dynamics.
An orphan girl child (not male child which is the preferred gender for adoption) being adopted by a Transgender. Now you don’t hear that everyday. The adoption not for the sake of having someone to look after the parent in old age (as is expected of children), but the depiction of a mother’s nurturing, a mother daughter bond, the anxiety of future and the pain of separation, the ad deals with a myriad of emotions in a way that it puts (anyone who ever used the word K and H for transgenders) to shame. It shows a daughters promise to commit her life to ensuring her mother and others like her get their fair share and place in a world where God sent them.
I want to open a debate, as to why some of us are treated as outcasts owing to a birth defect? Why must there be a special community for children being born without an organ, when there is none for those without a finger or an ear. Why is all our shame, glory, sentiment, pride attached to our (or others) sexual organs? Why is a son better than a daughter when it comes to the preferred gender for adoption? Why don’t more people adopt if they can afford to accommodate and improve someone’s life? Why I could never ask my mother how Jamila was different and why I suspected she will be angry if I did?
We need more people like Gayatri and Gauri Sawant, we need more brands like Vicks, we need to be more than what we are.
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