Touch of a transgender

                   It is January and the beginning of the new year. The MRTS coach tugs along. I have done this innumerable times through the last 8 years. The dilapidated housing board flats in Chintadripet, the encroached slums on the bank of the Buckingham canal in their drab selves with some of them showing their innards. The coach makes its rustling metallic noise as it moves along. The hand support holders hanging from the top of the coach merrily clucks away. If there is one overwhelming feeling that I get in my journey it is the pervasiveness of a drabness. The only time this monotonous drabness gives way to something cheery is when the Marina appears near Chepauk or if the bright blue sky breaks out with wondrous cloud patterns as it often does.There are the different commuters in my coach, the professionals working in the numerous IT firms in Perungudi, Velachery and Taramani. There are the Carpenters, the masons, the house maids going to the more prosperous areas of Adayar and Tiruvanmiyur. Eyes diverted from each other and everyone in their own world, I find myself restless and moving to the space near the door. This is a sensation that i often struggle with and usually lose. I often get up from my seat and lose the seat because of this restless anxiety. I wonder at the people who can sit in the same place for the whole journey which can take more than 30 minutes and this is how most people are. Today is a similar day and i am standing. There are a group of transgenders moving through the coach. It will take only a few minutes for the train to move into Tiruvanmiyur station and for me to get down. My instinct towards transgenders is the same as most people forced to confront them in public spaces.It is to avoid them. Right now it is a race against time. Would he/she make it up to me before the train reaches Tiruvanmiyur station. The transgender extends his/her hand and this time it is different. There is no cynical exhortation in the request but rather a matter of fact casualness from a very sad face. Now it is for me to respond. I usually do not give in to beggars unless they are very old or if they suffer from a severe disability. But with transgenders the logic that drives my middle class thinking breaks down. I give a two rupee coin from my pocket to him/her. Then the most amazing thing that can happen occurs.He/She touches my forehead with his/her hands. As i get down from the train and move among the swirling mass of people towards the exit, i know within myself that something radical had occurred now and a great taboo broken. I know that I am no longer anonymous anymore. I have been connected and a  feeling of being one spoke in a giant wheel takes over me.