Rumi Harish still remembers the policeman he met in 2015 or 2016, who was in a frenzy killing all the mosquitoes that ventured near him. “We were wondering what was wrong with the person,” says Rumi, with a laugh, recalling the intensity with which he was squashing the insects. Then, he heard the man tell someone else that homosexuality spreads through mosquitoes.
Rumi, a queer trans man and gender-rights activist, is not new to prejudice, misinformation and bigotry. Born Sumathi Murthy, he spent over 40 years in a body he could not feel at home in, constantly battling the gender stereotypes he encountered in the Hindustani classical musical landscape he belongs to.
In a musical tradition
“Because of the music tradition I came from, I was forced to identify as a woman, could never express the man inside me,” says Rumi, who has recently released his memoir Jaunpuri Khayal, co-authored with noted Kannada writer Dadapeer Jayman and published by an independent publishing house, Aharnishi Prakashana. The classical music landscape demanded a very traditional lifestyle, something he did not want for himself, he says, even frowning upon the fact that he refused to get married.
“They rejected me in the field of music because I was not married. They can’t think beyond that,” he says, recalling, with a laugh all his attempts to escape the institution. “I have done all kinds of drama to escape every groom-seeing,” he says, listing some of them — running away, digging his nose, unnecessarily coughing, proclaiming he was infertile. “I lived like that for a long time,” he says. “I knew from childhood that I was a man. But I could never express it.”
Many of her struggles find themselves in the memoir, one of the few attempts to document the trans-man experience in India, perhaps even the first-person narrative of this journey.
Of gender and belonging
Many of these struggles find themselves in the memoir, one of the few attempts to document the trans-man experience in India, perhaps even the first-person narrative of this journey. Rumi, however, is loath to call this the first autobiography by a trans man. “I don’t believe in calling anything first,” he says. But he does admit that a first-person narrative of a trans man is rare. “It is because of the secondary situation that female-assigned people get in society,” believes Rumi. Also, unlike in the case of trans women, no culture or history is associated with the trans man experience. “We become specimens,” he remarks.
This even shows up in the medical profession when female-assigned people choose to opt for gender-affirmation surgery. “Some people treat our bodies like guinea pigs,” says Rumi, who began researching the surgery 17-odd years ago. “We researched not just for ourselves but for others,” says Rumi, who has been doing crisis intervention work for a long time. “I see that people have gone through all kinds of extremes,” he says.
A late start
By his early forties, Rumi had changed his name and started dressing like a man. “It was very late,” says Rumi who struggled with severe dysmorphia for many years. “I never saw myself behaving like a woman...wearing sarees was a curse,” he says. At the same time, the nuances of grooming himself as a man was challenging at first. “I had never worn jeans before this,” says Rumi, who credits his old friend, Sunil, a fellow transman, with taking him to the barber shop, teaching him how to wear belts and use Old Spice.
Sunil was also a source of immense support when, a few years later, at the age of 47, he decided to have his gender-affirming surgery or medical transition. “I went through a long journey of constructing and deconstructing my gender,” says Rumi, who often worried if he would be a proper man. “I knew I was never going to be a macho man,” he says, pointing out that choosing the sort of man you wanted to be was also part of this transition. “
What helped, he says, was remembering the other men in his life who were “soft, not fighting and shouting. I realised that I wanted to be a man like that. That was the category I belonged to,” he says, adding, “I chose my body and masculinity.”
Rumi pointed out that the process took around six months or so. | Photo Credit: TH
Telling his story
Rumi met Dadapeer Jayman at a poetry reading he had organised in memory of his mother, sculptor Kanaka Murthy, who succumbed to COVID-19 in May 2021. “I don’t follow any rituals, and neither did my mother,” recalls Rumi. Instead, on her death day and birthday, he would call people together to read poetry, sing, or engage in literature. “That was where I met Dada and realised that he stays in a hostel very close by,” recalls Rumi. “So, I told him that he could come home anytime.”
Jayman, however, persisted, with Sunil chipping in, too, recalls Rumi. “They put their foot down and said that I should do this because otherwise it would go undocumented,” he says. But Rumi kept saying that he didn’t have a story to tell. “I only had stories about my friends: the friends who worked with me, lived with me, even passed on… friends who have left a deep mark in my life,” he says. “I was telling them that there is nothing called Rumi’s life. There is only Rumi and friends.”
Diverse friendships, many stories
Inevitably that is what the book became, with every friend becoming a chapter in the book. “I started talking about people in my life,” says Rumi, pointing out that he has always had diverse friends with varied backgrounds and across a range of ages. “Through their stories, mine emerges.”
Jayman spent long hours listening to each other, shaping the narratives that went into the book, says Rumi, pointing out that the process took around six months or so. “I was going through a very bad patch of depression after my mother’s death. I was repeating myself as I unpacked my childhood,” recalls Rumi, admitting that it was a complicated relationship. “My mother and I had a love-hate relationship,” he says. “She never behaved like a mother. We were more like friends, like siblings.”
Listening to each other
Yet when he chose to have the surgery, his mother supported him, recalls Rumi, who continues to struggle with grief. But they persevered, unearthing stories of the various people, including his mother, who had touched Rumi’s life and been part of his journey. “First, he listened to me, and then I listened to him. We challenged each other,” he says, adding that he is especially grateful to Akshata Humchadakatte of Aharnishi Prakashana for bringing the project to fruition. “Everything came through. It is Rumi’s story. It is Rumi’s friends’ stories. It is a whole lot of people’s stories,” says Rumi.
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