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The Parcel
The Parcel�s astonishing heart, soul and unforgettable voice is Madhu - born a boy, but made a eunuch - who has spent most of her life in a close - knit clan of transgender sex workers in Kamathipura, the notorious red - light district of Bombay. This is a dark, devastating, but incandescent novel that promises to be one of the most talked about publications of the year. About the Author : Anosh Irani has published three critically acclaimed and award-winning novels - The Cripple and His Talismans (2004), a national bestseller, The Song of Kahunsha (2006), which was an international bestseller and shortlisted for Canada Reads and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and Dahanu Road (2010), which was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. His play Bombay Black won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (2006) and his anthology The Bombay Plays - The Matka King & Bombay Black was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. He lives in Vancouver. The author lives in Vancouver, BC.
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Published January 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 11, 2024
This book took me longer than normal. No, it’s not long, and no, it’s not dull. It’s difficult to stomach. It talks of the hard reality that transgenders faced in India before the law was passed in 2014, sex trade, and child trafficking.
The book is a detailed account of the Red Light district in Mumbai. It throws light on the status of eunuchs in society in the past vis-a-vis the present. Once respected ( in the palaces of the Mughals they were kept as protectors of the harem and queen while the king went to battle, and traded like wealth), and feared ( as per a story in Hindu mythology, Eunuchs were blessed by Lord Ram that what they uttered would come true), Eunuch’s were demeaned and disregarded until April 2014. Not belonging to any specific gender, they had no right to vote and had no ID either. So, they couldn’t apply for jobs and had to resort to begging, sex trade, dancing at weddings or the birth of a child; getting a Eunuch’s blessing was considered auspicious.
“I am reviled and revered, deemed to have been blessed and cursed, with sacred powers. Parents think of me as a kidnapper, shopkeepers as a lucky charm, and married couples as fertility experts. to passengers in Taxis, I am but a nuisance. I am shooed away like a crow.” This is what Anosh Irani writes in the prologue. This sentence is what made me read the book. However, I had little idea what I was getting into.
While the book is fiction, it reads like a documentary at times providing a detailed account of life and death, disease, suffering, transformation, loyalty and sisterhood in the 14 lanes of Kamathipura.
The story
The story is about Madhu, a girl trapped in a boy’s body. At ten, when the teacher calls Madhu up to the board to write a spelling, the students laugh and say, “He walks like a girl.” Seeing Madhu’s face, the teacher stops calling him to the board. But Madhu’s aware that he is different from the other boys. The lack of understanding and love/touch from Madhu’s father, a college professor, and mother, a homemaker, leaves Madhu feeling unwanted. It’s tragic because he has no idea what is wrong with him.
Madhu’s family live in a neighbourhood close to Kamathipura, the red light district in Mumbai. When Madhu’s younger brother is born, Madhu is more aware of the difference with which his parents treat him and his brother. Hungry for love and acceptance, Madhu runs away from home to the red light area where the brothel owner, Hijra House, takes him. ‘Hijra’ is the term given to Eunuchs in India.
Madhu isn’t born a eunuch but being effeminate, he’s noticed by the Eunuchs who live in the neighborhood. When the head of a brothel, Gurumai, sees him at a store buying sweets, she recognizes the boy as one of them and tells him if he ever feels lost, he should come to her. So, in a fit of rage and feelings of abandonment, Madhu leaves home at 14. He doesn’t realize that he can never return once he’s entered the brothel. He hopes his parents come looking for him, and is disappointed when they don’t. The truth is that his mother does come looking for him but leaves on learning that he has been castrated.
It’s shocking as a reader how a child from an educated family is pushed into prostitution because he is ‘different’ from other children. The first betrayal comes from loved ones. The book is written in the lingo of the people in the Red Light District of Mumbai – it’s coarse, disgusting and hard to digest. The author does not shy away from telling it as it is, thereby shocking the reader’s sensibilities. But the manner of storytelling and the story itself makes one feel for the ‘Third Gender’. ‘From a dhandewali (sex worker) to a badhai hijra (those who sing and dance at weddings), and now a mangti, one who begged, she had experienced all three roles that a hijra could play.‘
Anosh Irani throws light on the crazy superstitions and nonsensical religious beliefs which lead to young girls being married to older men who are ‘pojeetives’ to get purged, hijras being buried only at night, the funeral rites where a hijra’s corpse is beaten by the other hijras so that the soul never thinks of returning as a hijra again. It’s tragic, painful and unjust beyond words.
Why should you read it?
Although ignorance is bliss, I believe knowledge gives birth to compassion. It is easy to judge people based on hearsay. Anosh Irani gives you an opportunity to walk the streets of Kamathipura, be a silent observer in a world far removed from anything you have known and all this without getting your feet sullied. By doing this, the author taps on the reader's conscience and perhaps makes him/her little more accepting and understanding of those different from him/her.
To read more of the review, you can check out my link https://smithavpennings.com/2024/03/0...
The book is a detailed account of the Red Light district in Mumbai. It throws light on the status of eunuchs in society in the past vis-a-vis the present. Once respected ( in the palaces of the Mughals they were kept as protectors of the harem and queen while the king went to battle, and traded like wealth), and feared ( as per a story in Hindu mythology, Eunuchs were blessed by Lord Ram that what they uttered would come true), Eunuch’s were demeaned and disregarded until April 2014. Not belonging to any specific gender, they had no right to vote and had no ID either. So, they couldn’t apply for jobs and had to resort to begging, sex trade, dancing at weddings or the birth of a child; getting a Eunuch’s blessing was considered auspicious.
“I am reviled and revered, deemed to have been blessed and cursed, with sacred powers. Parents think of me as a kidnapper, shopkeepers as a lucky charm, and married couples as fertility experts. to passengers in Taxis, I am but a nuisance. I am shooed away like a crow.” This is what Anosh Irani writes in the prologue. This sentence is what made me read the book. However, I had little idea what I was getting into.
While the book is fiction, it reads like a documentary at times providing a detailed account of life and death, disease, suffering, transformation, loyalty and sisterhood in the 14 lanes of Kamathipura.
The story
The story is about Madhu, a girl trapped in a boy’s body. At ten, when the teacher calls Madhu up to the board to write a spelling, the students laugh and say, “He walks like a girl.” Seeing Madhu’s face, the teacher stops calling him to the board. But Madhu’s aware that he is different from the other boys. The lack of understanding and love/touch from Madhu’s father, a college professor, and mother, a homemaker, leaves Madhu feeling unwanted. It’s tragic because he has no idea what is wrong with him.
Madhu’s family live in a neighbourhood close to Kamathipura, the red light district in Mumbai. When Madhu’s younger brother is born, Madhu is more aware of the difference with which his parents treat him and his brother. Hungry for love and acceptance, Madhu runs away from home to the red light area where the brothel owner, Hijra House, takes him. ‘Hijra’ is the term given to Eunuchs in India.
Madhu isn’t born a eunuch but being effeminate, he’s noticed by the Eunuchs who live in the neighborhood. When the head of a brothel, Gurumai, sees him at a store buying sweets, she recognizes the boy as one of them and tells him if he ever feels lost, he should come to her. So, in a fit of rage and feelings of abandonment, Madhu leaves home at 14. He doesn’t realize that he can never return once he’s entered the brothel. He hopes his parents come looking for him, and is disappointed when they don’t. The truth is that his mother does come looking for him but leaves on learning that he has been castrated.
It’s shocking as a reader how a child from an educated family is pushed into prostitution because he is ‘different’ from other children. The first betrayal comes from loved ones. The book is written in the lingo of the people in the Red Light District of Mumbai – it’s coarse, disgusting and hard to digest. The author does not shy away from telling it as it is, thereby shocking the reader’s sensibilities. But the manner of storytelling and the story itself makes one feel for the ‘Third Gender’. ‘From a dhandewali (sex worker) to a badhai hijra (those who sing and dance at weddings), and now a mangti, one who begged, she had experienced all three roles that a hijra could play.‘
Anosh Irani throws light on the crazy superstitions and nonsensical religious beliefs which lead to young girls being married to older men who are ‘pojeetives’ to get purged, hijras being buried only at night, the funeral rites where a hijra’s corpse is beaten by the other hijras so that the soul never thinks of returning as a hijra again. It’s tragic, painful and unjust beyond words.
Why should you read it?
Although ignorance is bliss, I believe knowledge gives birth to compassion. It is easy to judge people based on hearsay. Anosh Irani gives you an opportunity to walk the streets of Kamathipura, be a silent observer in a world far removed from anything you have known and all this without getting your feet sullied. By doing this, the author taps on the reader's conscience and perhaps makes him/her little more accepting and understanding of those different from him/her.
To read more of the review, you can check out my link https://smithavpennings.com/2024/03/0...
July 25, 2023
Beautiful and brutal.
Genuine characters with an impossible story that sadly feels true.
It makes me want to travel to Kamathipura, but I feel I have now been there, lived it and could not possibly return.
Genuine characters with an impossible story that sadly feels true.
It makes me want to travel to Kamathipura, but I feel I have now been there, lived it and could not possibly return.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews