Chandigarh’s nonagenarians open heart and home to transgender couple - Hindustan Times
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Chandigarh’s nonagenarians open heart and home to transgender couple

ByAishwarya Khosla
Apr 15, 2022 01:37 AM IST

Rising above ossified biases, an elderly Chandigarh-based couple is pioneering social reform by adopting two transgenders

“Who is she?” asks a woman visiting the Chahals at their spacious Sector 30 house in a stage whisper. She is referring to the stately transwoman in a yellow saree and red bindi who is gracefully hosting this writer at her new home. Pat comes the response of Shamsher Kaur Chahal, “She is my new daughter, Dhananjay.”

In a world where everybody talks the talk, but only a few dare to walk the talk, the Chahals have set a lofty benchmark. (Keshav Singh/HT)
In a world where everybody talks the talk, but only a few dare to walk the talk, the Chahals have set a lofty benchmark. (Keshav Singh/HT)

Though it has only been three weeks since their new kids Rudra Pratap Singh and Dhananjay Chauhan moved in with Shamsher, 93, and her husband, advocate Darbara Singh Chahal, 95, the nonagenarian couple’s adoration and acceptance is hard to miss, and is reciprocated in equal measures by the younger couple.

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Dhananjay and her boyfriend Rudra, a transman, who had to leave their families due to the deeply-entrenched bias, have at long last found a home where they are accepted without judgement or censure.

“Back home in Lucknow, my family, especially my brother, could not accept that I was no longer Mitali, but Rudra. It was difficult for them to accept me as a man and they continued to address me with female pronouns, which cause dysphoria. But here, I can be myself in a family set up and live freely,” says Rudra, who works at a multinational corporation.

While Dhananjay chose to stay back and work as an LGBTQIA+ activist instead of leaving the city and starting life with a blank slate, she too had to leave her home as society was discriminating against her family, especially after she started openly wearing sarees after the Supreme Court recognised transgender people as a third gender in its 2014 landmark ruling.

“Nobody wanted to marry my brother’s kids because of me. So, though my family did not say anything, I left them to make their life easier,” she says, adding that she has been victim to gruesome sexual abuse while living on her own.

“Earlier, we were living in a slum area in Halomajra. Moving to a good area and being accepted in the society means a lot. There are so many elderly people whose children live away and cannot look after them, and there are many transgender people who are starved of a family’s love and would love to look after them,” the younger couple says.

It was the elderly couple’s married daughters – Pracheen Kala Kendra deputy registrar and Kathak expert Samira Kosar and America-based gynaecologist Dr Mamta Chahal – who suggested that their parents adopt the couple.

“Samira and I used to learn Kathak together at the Chandigarh Sangeet Natak Academy. We met by chance after 34 years, and she encouraged me to take up dance again which I had to leave once I came out as a transgender. When she came to know that I had gone to a ‘badhai’ (an event where transgenders are called to bless a new couple or child), and lived in a slum area, she shared the matter with her parents and sister, who decided to adopt us,” says Dhananjay, a social crusader who was instrumental in setting up a transgender washroom at PU, and has several degrees in her “quiver”.

“We were living alone in a big house. Now, these children take care of us, and there is never a dull moment with them around. More elderly people in the society need to shed their biases and adopt transgenders who do not have families. This will help transgenders get acceptance in the society, and keep them safe from harassment,” says Kaur.

For Dhananjay, being able to talk freely to her new family is the highlight of the day, while Rudra loves that there is someone who cares for their general well-being, and someone to inform if one is running late at work.

In a world where everybody talks the talk, but only a few dare to walk the talk, the Chahals have set a lofty benchmark.

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