I have a right to marry… and divorce

Avin Padmashali, 5, is not a boy or a girl; Avin is Avin. They are being raised without being assigned a gender, caste, or religion, and with Dr Akkai Padmashali as their father and mother

Dr Akkai Padmashali wanted to marry to have the complete feminine experience, be the centre of family life like her mother - cook, take care of a home, care for her children and family members to care for; neighbours and extended family dropping in for a chat; celebrations and gatherings.

"My parents were also pressuring me to settle," says the Bengaluru-based social and political activist, "My gender affirmation surgery was done, including the breast augmentation and hormone replacement therapy. They kept saying, ‘Your younger brother is married and has a child, your sister has also gone to her home… only you are not settled'…"

Padmashali was the first person in Karnataka to complete her sex affirmation surgery (2012); and then the first to register her marriage under the Special Marriage Act (2018). And in the early weeks of July, she exercised her right to divorce and was granted sole custody of her child. Eventually, she found that marriage was a heavily patriarchal construct, stacked in the favour of men at the cost of women's emotional, physical and financial resources and labour.

Like any bride, Padmashali entered marriage with careful consideration and a lot of hope. "I wanted to bond and be faithful to one person; to make a family," she says. "He [Vasudev V] and I worked in the same organisation, and he was junior to me; I was a project manager in an international NGO. He was always proposing ‘Love me, love me'. Then he approached my brother and begged him to convince me."

Both families sat down and Akkai's carefully explained her transgender identity, the sex affirming surgeries, her allegiance to her hijra community, and her history in begging and sex work. How she could not bear children, but wanted to adopt a child. Vasudev and family eagerly convinced them that none of this mattered to them; and the family told Akkai she could not find a better match. There was a consensus that there would be no dowry, no matching of horoscopes.

On January 19, 2017, Akkai enjoyed a haldi ceremony with the Hijra community. "I enjoyed it very much," she reminisces, "They gave me bangles, put haldi on me, mehendi. The wedding was the next day, on the 20th. We had invited 30 people; 500 people showed up! All my friends, colleagues, well-wishers, feminists, queer persons… so many people!"

The couple had agreed that their wedding would represent all religions. "He tied a thaali around my neck as per Hinduism, we exchanged rings like Christians, said Qubool hai three times. Jain and Buddhist priests chanted prayers." A year later, they registered their marriage under the Special Marriages Act. Their wedding night, Akkai says, was not as anticipated. "He was terribly drunk," she says, "And apologised the next day."

Dark days followed quickly. In her divorce petition, Padmashali has accused her former husband of cheating her by not revealing an earlier marriage to his niece, of isolating her from her family and community, of being an alcoholic, stealing jewellery and money gifted to their child, harassing her for dowry, physical assault, forced sex, attempted murder and of trying to harm their child, Avin. Much of their life together was in Magadi town, and Padmashali says she commuted to Bengaluru for work every day, and was the prime earning member for their entire extended family.

But why did an activist like her, who has helped many disenfranchised people get out of abusive situations, not go to the police. "Family intervention stopped me from going to the police," she says, "I wanted to handle everything within the community, and my elder sister in the hijra culture, Soumya, intervened many times. The police system has their way of handling issues, which I do not trust." She adds that she had experienced the brutality of the system as a sex worker and beggar, and would not risk it in a small town where she had no connections.

Her family had already told her that her problems were hers to sort and to not bring them to them. They had even stopped inviting her to family functions. Her in-laws told her to not keep in touch with her Hijra brethren.

There were some sunshine days, like the coming home of their child Avin, who is a distant relative of Padmashali. Both Vasu and Padmashali went through the rigorous adoption process to bring Avin home when he was one month old. "We had a badhai ceremony as per the Hijra culture, and my guruji and all my friends gifted the baby gold jewellery and money." But soon, she says, her in-laws told Vasu not accept the child as they were not genetically his. "There were taunts about the colour of my skin, that I could not bear children, and that I was still practising sex work when I went to Bengaluru," she says. "Finally, Vasu said he did not want Avin; I told him I didn't want him."

Padmashali moved back into her parental home. Her father had passed away by then, as had her brother. She is now focusing on raising Avin, who is now five, without gender, caste or religion. "I have taught him that if anyone asks his father's name, he should say Akkai. Mother's name? Akkai," she says. "I want him to grow up knowing about Hijra culture. It's not that I will hide the truth about his father… it's just not age-appropriate."

Ironically, Padmashali was not always the marrying type."My feminist friends and I would discuss how marriage is notional and patriarchal," she says. "I had seen so much abuse as a sex worker and in begging - the most brutal side if men - and thought marriage would be the same. But I had a beautiful relationship before with a cis male childhood friend. It was like a marriage. Venugopal accepted me the way I was; we grew up together. Then he wanted a biological child, and married a cis het woman named Sujata, and we became a sweet little family of three. We would laugh together, go on holidays together. He passed away a year and a half ago. His children still call me Amma."

The 40-year-old wants to fight against the patriarchal notion of marriage and "forms of violence within the family." Will she ever marry again? "I don't know," she says. "It's too soon to tell. But I will have sex again…"