Motherhood is not about being a woman and carrying a baby in your womb for nine months.
Motherhood is a feeling, an experience, a journey, an intense feeling of love with an innocent infant. Motherhood doesn’t depend on gender, caste, race, or social status.
Brief Summary:
“An unexpected gift” by Ajay K Pandey is a story of such a mother. Sheetal, can’t be a mother as she is a transgender woman. Her childhood dream of becoming a mother came true when she had the opportunity to babysit a motherless toddler. But will society accept her and allow her to live the life she always desired?
My take
After finishing the first chapter, I felt a lump in my throat. The struggle of the single father was obvious, but what about the struggle of the child who lost the mother before the mother knew what it was?
It is common to see transgender people begging or dancing in the streets. They don’t do it because they want to. They do it because they have to. We’ve not left them with any other option. It is the truth. They are deprived of the privileges of getting proper education or a job. Even after the government has officially announced them as the third gender, there is not much improvement in the scenario. Until the conservative mentality and prejudices invoked by society on society, nothing will happen.
We got a rare opportunity to understand the life of a transgender woman through the pages of the book. Right after her birth, how her behavior changes, how she is treated, the hurdles she faced, and I know most transgender people face more or less the same obstacles in their lives. The life of Sheetal is a lesson to society, to show how cruel we’re to them. How non-cooperative we’re. How we’re making their painful life more challenging.
I’m not going to comment on the writing style. The perfect choice of words to describe the intensity of each event is commendable. In a word, a masterpiece. One of the best books I’ve ever read. I would recommend it to everyone.