It's been a while since I've written for my blog. What I have witnessed today calls for a post. I have been feeling out of place at all the places I go for a long time. And one of the causes for this has been my gender. I will elaborate. I have been fascinated by the females ever since I was a kid. There is some mystical calmness and wonder in a woman, in every woman. I cannot quite explain it, it is just the way they are. And several times, I have felt like I know what they are all about. Especially when having a conversation and getting the signals of being understood. My mother was a woman too. And I have known this woman big time. I have also had several problems with them, their ego or the arrogant or evil behaviour that some of them had. I have also been severely introverted, keeping things to myself and always careful of what I would say. But I could always go talk to a girl if I saw her everyday. In fact I could make good friends with any girl. I am a kind person. Or at least I used to be, before a world of events made me cynical about everyone. I confused friendship with love plenty of times. It was more like I was expecting love from the friend I really loved. This has not just happened once, but with the person I considered the love of my life and twice after that. As life went on, I was slowly getting used to being solitary. No relationships, not even friends. I began to live an alienated life where the only people I know were my colleagues who exchange with me casually but mostly regarding work. I kind of liked the anonymity, keeping the ocean of my personal universe to myself. But at the same time, I missed feeling any kind of affection from anyone that could make me happy. As I rowed my boat in this river of sadness, I have been meeting extraordinarily interesting, extremely wise and awesomely big hearted people. At the end of it all, I have managed to strictly keep work only to make money and to get better at the work I do. So none of my colleagues are interesting, wise or big hearted. They are all good at their work and I hope to learn from them. I am just obsessively continuing my past habit of being meritorious, constantly fearing the disappointment of my parents. My personal needs and worries have turned into dangerous demons that are emerging back to haunt me. I am nothing but an ambitious woman, yes a woman. Like my mother, who had so many hopes and ambitions about what she would do with her life, before she got married. Like the girl I loved so much since I was a teenager and still cannot see her not being a part of my life. I used to think that all girls were quite ambitious. All girls are quite intelligent, at least in India you are supposed to be, since it is your only defence against the world and other people. It's quite sad because if all those intelligent minds worked together, the country would be on it's way to show an example to the world of a perfect society. But not all girls are as intelligent or as sharp as the ones from India. Some of them like to be simple and not too intellectual, in a quite and healing way, which has sort of changed me in a lot of ways and made me let go of my impossible ambitions, of this made-up world of mine in which people only interact on the basis of work. There has to be that magical joy of living among people. The joy of living in a community that supports values. So I decide on a Sunday afternoon, after contemplating on it and preparing for several months, to go out dressed like a woman. I had just taken a dump. I wiped my ass, trimmed my goat beard off and walked into my bedroom. Took my t-shirt off. Took my pants off, took my underwear off. Looked at my naked self in the full length mirror on the cupboard. A brown man. A man's shoulders, A man's hips, but yet a petite figure. I tried to make some feminine movements and tried to keep my facial expressions reserved, like a little girl who is shy to meet you for the first time. Oh, and the junk. All that is hanging down there will disappear when I tuck. Thanks to youtube and some practice. I opened the cupboard to reveal all the girl clothing I had bought in the past whenever I couldn't resist the urge to buy some sexy looking clothes hanging in the woman's section or when I saw some fashionable clothes worn by the perfectly figured mannequins in front of clothing shops; all of them bought either by lying to the salesperson that I was looking for something for my girlfriend or just by asking how much a certain garment costed and paying the shopkeeper the money. Made a point to myself to not go for any of the sexy stuff this day. The shorts that exposed all of my legs and those crop tops that exposed my belly as if there was a lack of clothing while these garments were made. I had to go for something conservative. It was the first time I was going out after all!!! The beautiful colourful skirt which flows about and swings as I made little steps and beautiful white blouse with three fancy pearl like buttons on the top and hands that didn't go all the way but stopped when they were three quarters down was the cutest. I was a simple meek girl in a skirt. I had done this several times in front of the mirror after my guilty shopping pleasures, but never dared to leave the house. I had been to the lingerie store once and bought a pair of bra and panties. And it was really embarrassing since I just bought them just like that! Not for my girlfriend, no nothing. In fact I had even asked the salesgirl, who also happened to be the owner of the shop, if “32B” would be a good size for me. She sure frowned at me, but was happy and smiled to herself at the counter in sheer disbelief while she was printing the bill for my purchase. I felt quite confident now, since I knew that I wanted to go to the lingerie store again for so long. The bra I had bought last time was so tight on my chest. I knew what size I had to buy now. I had secretly tried the black bra hanging in the bathroom. It was a 36D. (It was my room-mate’s. Shoosh!) I walked out of my room, afraid of being spotted by my room-mate while I'm dressed like this; wore one of her sandals lying at door, took my umbrella, my phone, the door keys, some money, locked the door and ran out. Into the wild. It was a little awkward when I came out. There was something wrong. I just couldn't walk out like this. Ah! Yes! I opened the umbrella. It wasn't raining. But it had been raining and the sky was dark. It was reason enough to carry an open umbrella. This way, I was just hoping that people wouldn't stare at my boy haircut and wouldn't think twice about my gender. As I walked on the road, I kept to myself, looking at the ground walking with gentle footsteps, not trying to rush and loving the way my skirted swayed and danced. Some cars passed by. Just like that. Some people passed by. (Made sure I hid my face from them) A couple of women were coming towards me on the side-walk. I didn't want to look at them. And they didn't want to look at me. There were some busy people near the empty market They were just finishing up. They just went on with their business. I approached an intersection. A guy walked past, keen on looking at my face. I slowly looked at him from underneath the umbrella. He walked away, like all he wanted was to look at my face. I had reached the mall where the lingerie shop was located. Stopped at the big entrance and folded my umbrella. There was no defence for my face now. I had to face what's next. I focussed inward, trying not to heed the stares and the looks. From the people sitting on the bench, the guard who was definitely watching me, from the girls who were walking out of the mall, who definitely didn't care, the pack of guys who came out, the one among them who looked around since he wasn't really sure of what he was looking at! Well I just smiled at this point. I walked on and there it was, the glass walls showing a clear view into the beautiful store lined on the outside with mannequins dressed in all kinds of exotic lingerie. The owner lady was at the counter. I acted like I didn't see her and walked straight into the door, my heart beating on my chest like a hammer and the air immediately heating up despite the air conditioning and my skin beginning to break a sweat. I got down to it immediately. Looked at the panties in discount section, touched them, felt them, looked for a bra of my size, desperately pulled out ones from far behind, checked their tags, read their size squinting my eyes and tried not to regret wearing my glasses that make me look like a guy. The owner by his time had noticed and went out of the store laughing after she had instructed something the to a friendly looking gentle woman who was assisting her. Well let her have her laugh, there's nothing better than making someone happy, I thought to myself and continued my search for the perfect bra. And the owner had returned before I had found the perfect black bra. I walked towards her and told her in a very low voice, very delicately and carefully that I would like to buy it. She took it and assumed that it was all. But I moved on to buy a white see-through one laced on the edges, a pink one, a two coloured orange and brown one and also a triangular bikini. With all of this, I approached the counter, the tender woman smiled at me. I think she knew what I've had to go through. Her eyes were friendly. As I placed every bit of underwear on the desk, the owner appeared and began to make the billing. I could sense that she really didn't like me. Well she doesn't have to because it's not a welcoming sight to see a cross dresser with a boy's haircut and a man's face to turn up in your lingerie store and walk around picking all kinds of underwear. I kept thinking about how I should have worn one of those drag queen make ups I had seen on youtube and should have worn a wig to make the transition complete. It was too late for all that and I received a smile from the lady along with the bill as if it was an added bonus or something. I fumbled for my money, the kind of money I could have spent on an exotic lunch at a restaurant by the beach and handed it to her. It was better that I spent it this way. She kept the bag of all the goodies on the desk. I fumbled again to collect the change. Clutched my phone, keys and my folded umbrella in one hand and took the polythene bag with the logo of their business on it in the other. Damn, I should buy a handbag! Said goodbye to the big woman in a soft voice again, and walked out of the store, content. You might think it's the end of an amazing story, but it was not. As I walked, now relieved and almost forgetting my half disguise as a woman, I walked towards the exit of the mall where I opened my umbrella again. At this point I was being stared at in the weirdest way by one of the guards dressed in a black uniform. I felt extremely insecure and didn't know what to do out of pure shock. He had seen my face and knew I was a man, but still kept looking at me like he wanted something. I just couldn't take it. I hid myself under the umbrella and kept walking. I walked in small but faster steps, climbed down the flight of stairs and out on to the road. There were not many people on the streets now. It was a Saturday evening and the even the hawkers had closed their shops, taken them to their houses perhaps. I just wanted to get home now, safe. As I kept walking, there was a man on the side-walk, selling something. He kept yelling something as I passed him and suddenly his voice began to become slow and he stopped yelling. He had just looked at my face and discovered that I am a man. He seemed quite innocent. He was just sitting there in awe I guess. I didn't want to know. I kept walking. The road was empty ahead of me. I would soon reach home. I like it when there are just huge trees and gardens around. I really didn't want to see any people, at least at this point. I entered the gate of my house, opened the front door with my keys, walked into my bedroom and closed the door behind me, sat on the bed and cried. I will be doing this again for sure.
