A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

LOVELY IS MY HIJRA NAME, which I was selecting at my eighteenth birthday ceremony. That was the ceremony where I was becoming a real woman. Arjuni Ma was taking me into her own bedroom and standing me in front of a tall mirror. She was giving me a golden blouse and a black petticoat to wear, and then she was wrapping a red sari around my hips. Her old knuckles and wrinkled skin were touching me with so much love. I was looking at myself in the mirror, making myself to be thinking of some jokes so that I was not crying. Finally I was knowing what it was feeling like, to be all the women I was seeing every day—on the train, holding children’s hands, cooking with ginger-garlic. They were all doing this one thing before going out of the house, putting nine yards of fabric on their bodies. When Arjuni Ma was kneeling in front of me, separating the pleats, I was true to god giving up and sobbing.