#shikhandi

[i-like-to-eat-cotton]

Anyone else hate how even when people talk about queerness in hinduism,they always get shikhandi wrong?

Like this one

Here they talk about certain figures in hindu stories and traditions that may count as queer,however,shikhandi's part is this

I don't know why people don't realize shikhandi was a TRANS MAN.

He was born a woman,then due to the gender exchange with a yaksha,he became a man(it's even mentioned in some lines that he had kids with his wife)

Shikhandi is referred by every other person as a man,also,this is from the udyoga parva:

"Bhishma didn't fight shikhandi,recognizing her unique identity"

Bhishma's vow included not fighting women,or anyone he perceived as feminine

The following line is said by Bhishma.

I don't know why they always call shikhandi intersex,or a trans woman,or even just a woman in disguise. He was a trans man,and everyone else in the Mahabharata,except Bhishma,calls him a man

[desigurlie]

I just had a thought. Though I will not say you can actually parallel these characters exactly but some of the allegory matches.

Jaskirat is Arjuna in this case. The fighter and avenger and warrior supreme. Sanyal obviously is Krishna considering he is pulling the strings of Jaskirat and laying the ultimate trap, the master of the chessboard.

In a way Hamza, Jaskirat's identity can be paralleled into how Arjuna was in disguise as Brihannala. Not exactly apt but you get the gist. The espionage factor during the incognito period of the Pandavas' exile.

And Hamza had to kill his family, his loved ones (as Hamza not Jaskirat) for dharma, for the righteous deed and for his motherland. So in this scenario I feel like I can parallel Rehman as Bhishma considering he is somewhat of a father figure as shown in the movie. The mentor. He is nearly invincible and the first domino that needed to be felled to destroy the Kauravas (here to get to the heart of the underworld nexus in Lyari).

Hamza loved him but he killed him like Arjuna had to. He couldn't do it alone so he took help from Amba/Shikhandi who in a way could be called Bhishma's own karma coming back to haunt him. Though I can't quite match Aslam to Shikhandi but then again, you get the basic gist.

I think I have losened some screw in my head.

My mahabharata heart is crying.

Now I am having fic ideas where Rehman himself tells Hamza how to kill him like Bhishma did to Arjuna. Someone help please!!!!

[sambhavami]

Shikhandi

Pride month is almost done, but here we go! ❤️🏳️‍⚧️

[yoursdrs]

Can we all take a minute to appreciate Devi Amba as much as we do for Draupadi???

Princess Amba was way ahead of her time. She refused to accept a swayamvar that turned into abduction, openly declared her love, and stood her ground in a world that expected women to stay silent. Even when the man she loved abandoned her, she didn’t shrink herself to fit society’s expectations—she demanded justice. She wasn't one to bow down. She was one to hold her head up high. She was one to know her worth. She was a WOMAN.

She questioned the injustice done not just to herself, but to her sisters too. She refused to be treated as a burden or a “charity case.” And when every door was shut on her, she chose not submission, but resistance.

Her story isn’t soft or easy—it’s fierce, painful, and relentless. She didn’t just endure; she transformed her suffering into purpose, into a vow that would echo across lifetimes.

It’s no surprise that she returns as Shikhandi, the sister of Draupadi—because Amba was never meant to be forgotten. She was never meant to bow down.

If Draupadi is the fire that ignited a war, Amba is the flame that refused to go out.

[friend-shaped-but]

Part 1.

Her— no, his— muscles ache. New skin covers the bones that roasted in fire, new muscles and organs make the body their home. Nestled in this new body, Amba’s soul feels an emotion that is new, and foreign, and different from anything else it has experienced before. Comfort. Never before has it truly felt at home in its body as it does now. Something deep within himself curls up and settles in his body, and a strange sort of bliss washes over him. He likes this, he decides. Now all he needs is a name.

He takes Sthunakarna’s leave, and finds his grandfather. Hotravahana treats him differently, and he wants to stomp his feet like a child and say ‘But I am the same person, why won’t you treat me the same!!’. He wants to throw childish tantrums, but he knows, in his heart of hearts that it will not do anything.

He also suspects that the real reason his grandfather acts different is not because he is a man now, or because there is a fire in his eyes that feels foreign to someone who watched him grow up as a happy little girl with her every wish fulfilled, but because the dark energy seeping out from him, the determination in his eyes— it scares the old man. It breaks his heart, but that is the price to pay, he thinks. He is an abomination now, a thing pieced together with fire and blood and anger and darkness and magic. Everyone’s eyes follow him as he goes about his business and tries to think of a plan to do what he set out to.

His mind spins with possibilities, but nothing concrete comes out, and at night, as he lies in bed, wide awake, he imagines recognition dawning in Devavrata’s eyes just as life bleeds out of them. Amba wanted a home, a family. He’s still the same person as she was, so he thinks he does too. But after days of distance, after feeling like an alien in a place he was supposed to be safe in, he walks away from his grandfather’s cottage, shedding the last bit of hope he had for a home. He builds a little tree house, its walls covered with plans scrawled on leaves with berry juice.

[zeherili-ankhein]

I love modern AU Shikhandi being a transman. It's the best thing ever.

But we also have to agree canon Mahabharat Shikahndi doesn't exactly count as trans man in the typical sense. Since his sex was changed to be a biological male with fully functioning reproductive organs and even hormones. To the point he was able to have kids of his own.

Yes, him being a trans icon is my favourite thing ever. But acknowledging he probably wasn't the best example of transgender people, or that pre sex change Shikhandini wasn't a trans man is also important.

Before he changed his sex with the Yaksha, she was just a biological woman born as a female but raised to live as a man. That's his identity. A very tomboyish prince(ss).

It is after her* wedding to the princess of Darsana that she* went to the Yaksha and changed to be a complete biological man. And lived as one his entire life.

But the most important remains the same, that he's an icon.

[yajnaseni]

Some of the Mahabharata characters/events and the entities I associate with them->

Krishna: extinction avatar! Mainly if you consider him to be the harbinger of a new yuga. Other options are the vast(ref: the bhagvat gita) and the web(self explanatory I think)

Arjuna: victim of the lonely. Spends a large portion of the epic on the road and exiled from his loved ones. Also I believe his pursuit of being "the perfect kshatriya" would lead to a sense of isolation from his peers. He was influenced by the hunt during jayadratha vadh.

Draupadi -> desolation is an obvious pick ,and objectively correct i feel. However I do think that the vastraharan was an example of slaughter- it was a violent act of malice that blindsided her, and left her scrambling without any allies. Post war she succumbs to the lonely, and that is what leads to her final fall.

Ashwathama-> avatar of the corruption. His massacre of the pandava forces is the day of his ascension. Slaughter also, obviously.

Karna-> the buried. This maybe a bit of a hear me out. But the way I interpret him, a huge fear of Karna's is that he would be stopped from achieving his true potential. Karna knows who he is as a person, and is (justifiably) quite confident in his abilities as a warrior. And yet his status as someone outside of royal lineage/caste acts as a barrier to his progress/social standing. He is the sun of the son, and his fire feels suffocated in the confines that society constantly tries to put him in. So yeah buried. Also web victim.

Shikandi-> I also read him as the buried, for pretty much the same reasoning as karna above. It is to be noted that Amba was a victim of the desolation, and I see Shikhandi as willingly carrying the burden of her vengeance. In general, all of the panchal siblings are affected by the desolation and slaughter in one way or another.

Yudhisthira-> There are so many fears plaguing this guy. Like draupadi, desolation is an obvious choice for him. The dice game can be argued as an example of the spiral.But I think he is most attached to the beholding. He is both watched( and judged, his worth weighed against his righteousness) and the watcher ( witness to the grief he has caused, the last one standing) .

Kunti-> Is also a victim of the eye! One of its aspects is the fear of having your secrets exposed. And well.

Hmmm what else. The yaksha encounter that Yudhisthira had was the stranger. Mausal parva was a slaughter ritual. The main war was again, the web.The flesh did try a ritual during the epic timeline , with Jasarandha as the conduit. Vidur and Sanjay are both agents of the beholding,but for completely different reasons. So is Vyasa.

Link to the fear entities for anyone who doesn't know them

https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/The_Entities

[h0bg0blin-meat]

*Drishtadhumnya and Draupadi are fighting*

Shikhandi: *on the phone* Hold on just a 😅 just a second my sib-my siblings 😅 are-... Im sorry 😅-

Shikhandi: *turns to them* STOP 👹👹👹

Draupadi and Drishtadhumnya: *frozen*

Shikhandi'a wife: *wheezing at a corner*

Shikhandi: GET OFF THE COUCH 👹👹👹

Draupadi and Drishtadhumnya: *do so in a millisecond*

Shikhandi's wife: *wheezing gets louder*