It was a child’s way to protect herself from her father and escape sexual abuse.
A load of broken stones on her head in a basket, her hair cut like a man’s, a slightly over-sized shirt—Pakkerappa could pass for any young man going about his work as a labourer at a construction site.
Pakkerappa was born Pakkeramma Kallapa Hundernahalli, the eldest of the four children of a family that lived in the Kale Devaruru village of Haveri district. When Pakkeramma was only three, her mother died. Her father raised the children, but began to prey on Pakkeramma sexually by the time she turned 10 years old. Unable to bear the torment, and not knowing where to turn, the girl ran away from home.
Pakkeramma took up manual jobs and worked as a domestic help to get by, but her life on the streets as a girl was hard. She took to wearing her hair short, and began wearing trousers. She lived with men, took to smoking, and adopted the name ‘Pakkerappa’. “Even those with whom I lived did not suspect that I’m a woman. I’ve been like this for 24 years now,” she says.
When she felt that her identity was being questioned, or feared that people were beginning to suspect the truth, she would just uproot herself and set off to a new place. She has travelled to Mangalore, Mysore, Madurai, Kanyakumri, Dharwar and parts of Kerala in search of work.
“People would ask me about home, but I just would not tell them where I came from—I could not go back and bear the abuse again,” Pakkerappa says.
Pakkerappa has been a man for 24 of her 35 years. She has not undergone sex change. She works like all the other construction labourers, breaking stones and carrying heavy loads.
She says that she would feel the pull of home once in a while. She would want to see her brothers. For so long as her father was alive, however, she did not return home. In 2007, hearing news of her father’s death, she decided to visit her siblings. She has since returned to her village in Haveri.
