Sixteenth

A couple of months ago, I went out on field along with a few classmates as a part of a project, a movement for securing gender rights for the hijra community (transgender, if you must, though they're not interchangeable). Called De Taali, it involved us going to colleges for workshops and having an awareness concert. The response was pretty darn good (Google has plenty of evidence). As a part of this project, one was supposed to make a film - fictional or otherwise without barring any holds. Yours truly made one and had to script for the same. With paucity of time, I don't think it turned out as he expected but seeing the state of this place, I think I owe it to myself to upload some.

This is the script of My Life in a Day, a dialogue between an NGO worker who has just started out complete with his idealism in place and a hijra who works (as many do) in the sex industry. Before you go on to read it though, a little background as to where this is coming from, considering it might ruffle some feathers.

1. The situation of the community is pretty, for the lack of better words, downtrodden. As the link above says, their primary work area is restricted due to negligence and inherent bias of the 'mainstream' population only to prostitution, NGOs and begging.

2. The title is borrowed from YouTube's ambitious venture 'Life In a Day', a film by Ridley Scott. It comprises of clips from over 80,000 videos that show the life of equal number of people in a single day, here, July 24, 2010.

3. The movie is inspired from 2 major activists from the LGBT community, both of whom I highly respect. However, it is does not advocate prostitution, only seeks to highlight the issue in a manner which borders om, if I may, risqué.