ABSTRACT
The plethora of definitions that purport to unravel the supposed mystery of the hijras, a mystery evoked in a recent book that paradoxically describes these ubiquitous street performers as "invisibles," testifies certainly to the ambivalence, if not confusion, that is rampant in the literature, and to a general incapacity, as may not unreasonably be suggested, to probe the deeper significance for a possibly emancipatory politics of knowledge signified by the community of hijras. The element of auspiciousness makes an insertion into the origin tale of the hijras in yet more complex ways. In much of northern and western India, Ganesh is the god of auspicious beginnings, but he is also the offspring of Shiva and Parvati. Hijras simultaneously identify themselves with Shiva, who both takes and restores Ganesh's life, even though they view themselves as vehicles of the divine power of the Mother Goddess.
