The Forgotten Hijrra Fakirs

In Sindh (as well as other parts of Pakistan and India), the word faqeer ( Hijrra and Kinarr) has a dual meaning. Typically, it refers to a beggar, but in the local context it also means a revered figure—someone with spiritual or mystical significance. There is a saying in Sindhi culture: “Never incur the curse of a faqeer; always seek their blessing.”

This is the story of two hijra faqeers—gender nonconforming individuals often known as transgender persons—who lived in different worlds, one in a village and the other in a city. Like many others from their community, they survived by singing and dancing at weddings and childbirth celebrations and collecting alms.

Despite their separate geographies, their lives shared a cruel symmetry. Both were shunned by their families and viewed through the same lens of social disdain. The pain of their existence was eerily similar.

The village faqeer was known as Mama Hussain, though no one really knew his original name. Children, women, and men alike affectionately called him “Mama.” He was a familiar face in every household—carrying a small basket under his arm, going door to door each morning asking for flour or rice. Yet wherever he went, he always inquired about people's joys and sorrows, celebrated their moments of happiness, and mourned with them in grief. He was treated like a member of the extended family.

But despite all the affection shown by the village, a quiet pain lived within him—the pain of rejection by his own kin. Every rupee he earned through his performances or by begging was snatched away by his siblings and their children. He paid for the household expenses, endured verbal abuse, even physical violence, and yet never left.
Now and then, he would murmur a protest, but always ended with:
“They’re my own, after all. And one’s own, even if they beat you, will still shade you from the sun.”

The city faqeer was my neighbor. I never learned his real name—no one did. We all simply called him Faqeer, and I, too, addressed him that way.
He was kind and generous, often offering food, company, and even lending money when times were hard.

His only relative was a nephew addicted to drugs. The young man would steal, get arrested, and every time, the faqeer would pay for his release and court fines.
When desperate for his next fix, the nephew would beat him. One night, he jumped over the wall, demanded money, and when refused, beat the faqeer so badly that his limbs were broken. He stole everything he could and fled.
The faqeer lay moaning all night. By morning, neighbors took him to the hospital. Months later, he was finally able to walk again.

I saw him on the street one day. He greeted me warmly and said with a broken smile,
Met my nephew after months today… Poor boy is completely destroyed by drugs. I must get him treated again.”

It would be the fifth time he enrolled him in a rehabilitation center. As always, the boy relapsed.

Time passed. The wheel of life turned.
The two faqeers aged. Their bodies weakened. They could no longer beg or dance.
The man who once carried the burden of a whole household became too frail to carry his own. And his family, once dependent on him, refused to carry his.

One day, both faqeers quietly died. Their funerals were held in the dead of night. Their bodies are buried under layers of earth.
And then, they were forgotten.
In a materialistic world, who remembers the dead?