The Ladyboy and his admirers

It's a fleeting image, but nonetheless an image that has stayed in my mind.

The light is not good enough at this hour. It's blurry and is casting shadows too many. In a matter of minutes the entire sky has turned bluish grey and a beautiful gorgeous moon is holding up there. A dozen cars speed by with their windows all rolled up. 

A lam-post erected at the corner of a road has a swarm of night insects circling round and round it’s weak light, dancing perhaps to a melodious jig.

Clutching my heavy bag, I am out there on the busy night street waiting for my vehicle to arrive.  My gaze keeps straying back from the moon to a street dog who is aimlessly licking at some biscuit crumbs.

Something then catches my eye.

I stand there transfixed, my heart thumping a little louder which only I am able to hear.

A few hundred meters away, at the end of the street, stands a lone rickety push cart, leaning against a weathered wall. One of the wheel is crooked and bent and perhaps that explains the reason for it abandoned there.

Seated atop the cart, I see a lady errr a Ladyboy with his one knee raised and the tip of his chin resting on it. Every time he would move, his slim waist would sway, adding an illusion of almost feminine grace to his movements. 

Pink, purple and blue fairy lights dangle from a lone wire, creating an air of mock festivity. 

He then lifts a pocket sized mirror. Under the dim shadows I see him holding a brush and painting his lips with utmost precision. I imagine the lipstick to be a scarlet red. He then moves to darken his eyebrows, and finally finishes off by dusting his face with some loose powder. 

Hordes and hordes of plastic bags are lying all around him. From the heap, he rummages and digs out two Bob pins to firmly secure his wig. A bottle of ittar lies close enough. He inhales the fragrance and dabs a little on the spot below his ears. From where I wait, I can make out a faint trace of his nearly bare back fastened with the flimsy ends of a choli. 

The pushcart wobbles a little as he shifts his position. The broad flare of his crimson skirt gets neatly arranged behind his legs. Resting his back against the wall, he pulls out a beedi to light up a smoke. For a fraction of a second, the bluish flame illuminates his face and I see him staring up at the moon, blowing thick smoke rings into the night air. I couldn’t help but notice the soft tenderness in his face behind all that garish make-up.

While the Ladyboy is busy dressing up for the night, I notice that I have company. A tiny figure crouched beside me on his haunches is also involved in watching the Ladyboy's theatrics. In fact he seems so allured by the charm of the Ladyboy, that he is unwilling to peel his eyes off him. Perhaps he is waiting for some sort of signal.

Within no time, I catch them exchanging looks. A flutter of fake eyelashes and a seductive smile from the Ladyboy is all that is required for the man to muster courage and take things in stride. He slowly gets ups, straightens his kurta, runs his fingers through his greasy hair, and moves ahead. One confident step at a time. His Kolhapuri chappals make a grating sound as he walks through the thick rubble of cement and stones.

As he moves away, he turns around so that our eyes meet. All this while, he probably knew that we were the only two spectators to observe the Ladyboy so closely.

But now, it weighed on him, to give a befitting end to the story. 

Tonight, an act or two was waiting to get committed behind the weathered wall in the overgrown bushes.