Suckers For Acceptance

If you've travelled by 3 tier (class???) in trains, as much as I have over the last couple of years, or commuted on the streets of Bombay (and NO, I will not call it Mumbai), you are probably not affected by the eunuchs, the third gender any more. You have been desensitized to them, just like the handicapped children, the blind beggar, or the man lost in the big city needing some money to get back home. But while travelling by train the last time round, I couldn't help thinking about them. And that is how, this post, came into being.

A very typical scenario, involving a group of eunuchs in a train, goes something like this : You are sleeping/dozing unaware. Suddenly you are awakened by a loud clap. You open your eyes in haste, and see a garishly dressed (wo)man, standing in front of you, speaking in horribly lilting tones with an unmistakable male undertone, asking you for money! Here, one of the three scenario's unfolds : You either quietly pay up and be done with it. You try and ignore them for a while till they either try to kiss you or touch your body in a way which would have been seductive, if it weren't downright revolting, and you hurriedly part with some money to end the harassment. And sometimes, though rarely, you just manage to wriggle your way out, without having to pay.

I fall in the last category.

I have never paid any money to them, in all these years of travelling 3 tier (And no, I haven't been to Bombay). And yet, my solution doesn't involve any rudeness, cheap threats, or snide mean comments on their sexuality (or lack thereof). Its just a small, sweetly told lie, smeared with a generous helping of manipulative psychology.

I look at them (direct eye contact is preferable), screw up my face to feign helplessness (or rather, what I think helplessness looks like), fold my hands, and utter something in the line of "Amma, student hain" (with extra emphasis on the first word). And believe you me, it has worked each and every time, for the last 8 odd years. There were few, who did ask a second time, but when I repeated the same line, with all the more emphasis on the Amma bit, they just quietly let me be.

It was incredible, as a psychological test case. Here you have a bunch of people who are unmoved by pretty much any insult that you can throw at them, actually reacting to something as simple as this! It was manipulative on my part, Yes. But nothing that they couldn't handle. Nothing that their collective frustration of being social outcasts for centuries, couldn't easily have overwhelmed. And so, the more I thought about it, the deeper I wanted to get into its mechanics. What exactly was it, that prompted such a reaction from them? Which part of their psyche, was this touching so deep.

My conclusion is, that it is the Need for Acceptance, that is at the root of this. What could have started out as a craving for social parity, now degenerated by the constant battering from a rigid society, to something as basic as a desire for mere acceptance. And this is not just restricted to the members of the third sex. I believe that this need for acceptance, is a basic need in all human beings. Though, it might be predominantly acute in any group which is a social minority. From the Rock'n'Roll wannabe who indulges in various forms of excesses to conform to an image to gain acceptance in his peer group, to the socially retarded geek who makes awkward attempts at conversation with the girl sitting beside him, and everyone else in between (which includes most of us, mere mortals). We all crave for attention from others. We all like to be a part of a group. An unexplainable urge to be cocooned in the comfort of the knowledge that there are people who accept us, just as we are. After all, at the end of the day we are all suckers for acceptance, aint we?