Bhopal, May 18: Abused, mocked and humiliated by colleagues for five years, Shabnam Mausi was overwhelmed when they gave her a standing ovation last night.
At the premiere of the Ashutosh Rana-starrer Shabnam Mausi, the country’s first eunuch politician said she felt part of the “mainstream” for the first time.
Eunuchs are always portrayed as caricatures in Hindi cinema to draw laughs or present a bawdy situation, moist-eyed Mausi said. “But this has gone beyond the usual portrayal and given the audience a peek into the struggle of an oppressed class which has its own aspirations.
“For someone who has constantly faced rejection from family, friends and society, the film has injected a sense of pride and dignity within me and special people like me.”
Nothing was easy, Mausi recalled. When she entered the Madhya Pradesh Assembly as an Independent, she was constantly laughed at. Each time she got up to speak, catcalls and whistles greeted her. “Fellow MLAs questioned my gender. I was looked at as an object, a jester of sorts. But each time it happened, it made me more determined to prove them wrong.”
Once, a Congress minister had made some outrageous remark that upset Mausi so much that she ran after him with a shoe in hand. The former minister attended the premiere last night and was full of admiration. “It is a story of success against all odds,” he conceded.
On another occasion, Mausi was stunned when state Congress president Radha Krishan Malviya sought to know her gender. But the quick-witted MLA came back with a one-liner: “Tu bata, tu Radha hai ki Krishan hai? (You tell me, are you Radha or Krishna?)”
At Rabindra Bhavan yesterday, led by chief minister Babulal Gaur, politicians from all parties stood up to applaud Mausi. She is no longer an MLA, having lost the 2003 poll, but is involved in social work in her former constituency, Suhagpur, 200 km from here.
Mausi has a regret. Despite her best efforts, she could not join the Congress due to stiff opposition from people like Malviya. “I even met Mrs Sonia Gandhi. She was sympathetic but I was not inducted into the party.”
Referring to her defeat in 2003, Mausi said: “I lost because there was a wave in favour of the BJP. People in my constituency wanted to punish the Congress and replace it with the BJP, so I lost.” In 2007, she will contest again.
Shabnam Mausi, directed by Yogesh Bhardwaj, will be released on Friday. Peppered with real-life incidents, the film revolves around eunuchs, their fraternity and their culture. “I have been asked how I got the idea. It came for Rs 2.50. I bought a newspaper that had a feature on Mausi. I decided to make a film,” Bhardwaj said.
Ashutosh, who plays Mausi, said: “Modesty prevents me from saying that the film goes beyond the usual caricature sketch of a eunuch and provides the audience a slice of reality about the struggle a eunuch encounters at every stage of life. In this sense, it is an effort to secure for these people their due place in the mainstream of society.”
The film chronicles the life of Mausi from her birth in a family of policemen in Mumbai to her occupying a seat in the Assembly.
