Photo for a Cause - By Rohit J

I can’t stop thinking about the transgender women I met recently.

They said,

“People like us… We have to do what clients ask.”

“Sucking a client’s pen*s… that is also part of it.”

It’s midnight.
I’m sitting at Marine Drive. Soothing.

The city looks clean from here.
Orderly. Distant.

But they might be out there right now with clients,
doing what is being asked of them.

I am still trying to imagine their world.

They transition because that’s who they are.
Because they feel feminine.

Because living any other way is not living at all.

To live what they feel,
to become who they are,
they transition.

But to live as themselves, many are pushed to the margins -

begging along with their community members,

doing s*x work to survive. (Not all.)

“People like us don’t always get to choose,” one of them said.

No one says this out loud.
They did.

Not because they want to.
Because often, they don’t have a choice.

Most places won’t hire them.
Most people won’t accept them.
So survival looks like this.

You call it something else.
They call it work.

One thing I noticed -

They build their own world.
They live together.
They sing.
They dance.
They laugh loudly.

They call each other family.

They hold each other in ways the world never did.

But survival has its own rules.

And they have found ways to protect themselves.
They know how to put condoms on clients who refuse to wear them.

They hide condoms in their mouth.
Wait.
And just before the act, they roll it on,
before the client realises.

“That’s how we take care of our health.”

One of them said, almost casually,

“It tastes like coconut oil.”

I didn’t know how to respond.
Later, sitting by the sea,
I kept thinking,

We talk about protection.
They practice it.

We talk about dignity.
They negotiate it.

In a world that refuses to make space for them,
they have learned to survive inside it.

Not everything is a choice.
Some things are survival.

* In the fourth photo - a peer educator demonstrates how to roll over the condom.

I wrote this a week ago when I had met them

These days my friend and I are working on HIV prevention related work. We are hearing a lot of personal and poignant stories of people.

Radhika and Ritesh (name changed) got married like most couples do, with plans, with small dreams. A home. A child.

Then one day, after a test, everything changed.

Ritesh was HIV positive.

When they told him, he broke down. He was sweating. He couldn’t stay.

The counsellor was still speaking. He didn’t hear anything.
He just walked out.

After that, Radhika and Ritesh stopped talking about having a child. Not because they didn’t want one, but because they were scared.

“What if the child also…?”

At home, people asked questions.

“When will you have a baby?”

They would smile and avoid the answer.

They couldn’t explain why.

Not because they didn’t have an answer, but because of the stigma around it.

They were even hesitant to consult the doctor for fear of being judged.

Somewhere in that time, a health worker, Vanita, came to meet them. She sat with them, listened. They told her everything they hadn’t been able to say out loud.

“Can we ever have a child?” Radhika asked.

Vanita said yes. Slowly, carefully, she explained how.

Ritesh would continue his ART treatment. Radhika could take PrEP before trying.

It didn’t sound simple. But it sounded possible.

So they tried.

Radhika started taking the pills. Months passed.

Nothing changed suddenly, but something inside them did.

And then, one day, she conceived.

Now, they have a one-month-old baby.

Ritesh still looks at the child like he’s not sure it’s real.

Sometimes he just sits there, quietly.

Every evening, he comes home, picks up the baby, and hums a lullaby, softly, almost to himself.

The same life they thought had ended is now in his arms.

He was 22 when he chose a name for himself.

Aliya.

He said he can’t wait for the day people call him Aliya.

He kept smiling when he said this.

But along with that name came fear.
He believed that once he transitioned, there would be no place for him in society.

No jobs. No acceptance for transgender people.

The only way to survive is - s*x work.

He was studying nursing at the time, but even that didn’t feel like a real path anymore.

When he finally told his family, he expected rejection.

His father was silent at first. Distant.

And then, a few days later, he held him.
“You are my child,” he said.

“I love you the way you feel. This is not your fault. Not mine either.”

His eyes glittered with teary water while recalling this.

Because he had already prepared himself to leave home.

He had even told them, “I will go… so you don’t have to face society. Bhai has his whole life ahead.”

But his younger brother stopped him.

“You don’t have to do anything just to survive. I am here. Always.”

For the first time, survival didn’t feel like loneliness.

He completed his nursing degree and got a job.
But the world outside the home was not as kind.
People mocked him.

His gestures. His voice. His presence.

The workplace became suffocating.
He almost quit.

Then one day, on a friend’s suggestion, he visited a community organisation.

He went there for laser therapy.
But he found something else: dignity.

He learned about s*xual health. About protection. About choices.

He started taking PrEP not out of fear, but awareness.

And when he saw an opening, she applied for a job there.

On one condition:
“No one should laugh at me for being who I am.”
They didn’t.

Today, Aliya works as a nurse.
With care. With dignity.

He lines his eyes with kajal. Fixes his hair. Takes his medication regularly.

And waits patiently for his body to align with how he feels inside.

And then he said something very softly,
“When I look more like a woman…
I will call myself Aliya.”

And this time -
She won’t have to leave anything behind to be her.

P.S. I wish I could share Aliya’s photo. Such a soft, calm and kindness she emits. The photo here is not of her.

Once living beside the abundant waters of the Narmada, the Adivasi communities of Sugat and Jhandana now walk kilometres every day to fetch drinking water.

After the Sardar Sarovar Dam submerged their villages, families were forced to move uphill into the Vindhya hills, away from water, electricity, roads, and basic infrastructure.

What remained intact was community.

Water is not fetched alone. Women, men, children, and even donkeys move together, down steep rocky paths to the river and back. Evenings often turn into quiet gatherings at the riverbank. What looks like hardship from outside becomes shared labour, shared time, shared resilience.

They spend hours every day walking, waiting, and climbing, yet they do not complain easily. Because in an indigenous way of life, survival is collective. Weddings, rituals, and daily life, everything is organised around helping one another, including ensuring enough water for everyone.

Some of the villagers were resettled and rehabilitated in Gujarat, while others chose or were forced to stay back in their village due to various reasons.

This photo story documents not just displacement and water scarcity, but how people endure loss together.

Photo story published by .network . Full link in bio.

Please share widely within Madhya Pradesh Government administration.

“We have seen our lands submerged in front of our eyes. It has been very painful,” says 59-year-old Goba Sastiya, a resident of Sugat village. It is evening, and having completed their water-related tasks, Goba and a few other men from the village have gathered on a hill top. They can see the river from their perch.

Nestled in the semi-deciduous forests of Alirajpur district, the easiest way to reach Sugat is crossing the Hathni river (a tributary of Narmada) by boat to the confluence of the river with Narmada. Residents of Sugat continue their journey on the Narmada until they reach the shore and make an uphill climb.

Fifteen years ago, water was not a problem for this and other Bhilala tribals — residents of Sugat and neighbouring Jhandana village who lived on the banks of the Narmada and Hathni, a tributary of Narmada. Water was plentiful and easy to access.

All that changed when the villages were submerged because of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, built on the Narmada. Gates closed around 2014, submerging approximately 200 villages in Madhya Pradesh, including Sugat and Jhandana. The river took away the farmlands of the residents. Those who did not migrate out or relocate, like Goba and his family were forced to move up into the Vindhya hills where there is no water, no electricity and no proper road.

He says, placing his stick under his chin. So Goba decided not to move. “If we go to another place to live, we will lose our community and will have to depend on wage labour for our survival. We don’t like to work in landlords’ farm fields,” says Goba, who continues to stay in Sugat.

Goba sums up the way the displaced residents feel, “We don’t have water, electricity and roads. Still, we prefer to live in our village because we have our land and community here.”

You can read the full story published by .network through link in bio - Long walk to water. Please share widely in Madhya Pradesh government administration.