In False Brothers, Evil Awakens

This chapter studies the relationship that hijras have with various members of their family, focusing on the fraternal bond as it occupies the Archimedean point or pivot that reveals how hijras calibrate their relationship with the various members of their family in light of the fact they used to be men, but are not anymore. The presence of a hijra within the family, gauged through such things as the anxiety of property transmission and inheritance, calls for reconfiguring the accepted notions of kinship, care, and asceticism that often define anthropological investigations of sexuality.