Anjali Arondekar

speaker

496 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 1 May

Anjali Arondekar’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society · Sex Work in Colonial India · 1 May 2026 podcast

We do not hear stories of sexuality as a place of possibility, as a place of empowerment, as a place of organizing.

And I think that's the story I want to keep reminding.

That's why abundance, there is always abundance.

It's all in the book.

You can read it over the toilet, as we say in India.

That's the best place to read.

Again, that's also a wonderful question and a question that should be asked again and again, especially as we live in such transphobic times, not just in the United States, but in India, in the UK, everywhere.

So the story of the Hijra is like the story of sexuality.

It is not about one version of transness.

It's about multiple versions.

The term Hijra becomes an umbrella term that the British mobilize to fold in many different kinds of non-normative bodies, right?

So if you go to southern India, they're called Kottis.

If you come to western India, they're called Jogdis.

So the word hijra normally is associated with a certain kind of trans female figure, right?

Someone who sings and dances and extorts money, claps in a certain way.

But if you look at the long history of hijras, and again, there are wonderful scholars who have written about this, hijras also, like courtesans, emerge from courtly sort of kings and

other darbars, etc.

And we're seen as a very important placeholder for respect, right?

So, hijras live in communities.

So, the figure of the hijra has again become this figure like the figure of the prostitute, right?

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