While making a religious pilgrimage, Anjum is attacked by rioting Hindu nationalists in the Indian state of Gujarat-an experience that leaves her too traumatized to care for Zainab and eventually prompts her to leave the Khwabgah altogether.Īnjum moves into an old Muslim cemetery, intending to stay there until she herself dies. However, her plans to leave the Khwabgah and live with Zainab as a typical mother and daughter are thwarted by the rise of anti-Muslim feeling in the early 2000s. Although she becomes quite successful, she longs to experience life as an “ordinary” (33) woman and, in her 40s, adopts an abandoned toddler whom she names Zainab. Anjum spends more than three decades in the Khwabgah, earning her living (as many Hijras do) as an entertainer and a sex worker. Once Aftab enters adolescence, however, he rejects this male identity and joins the Khwabgah, or “House of Dreams”-a local community of Hijras-taking the name Anjum. Anjum, who is born intersex and named Aftab, is initially raised as a boy. The first begins with Anjum, a Muslim Hijra (a traditional third gender in India comparable to the term “transgender woman”).
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