DANCING GAVE AMMA A REASON TO LIVE

At the age of 18, her village panchayat sabha and a priest suggested to Manjamma’s parents to allow her aka Manjunatha Shetty to lead the life of a Jogati. Once given in service to Renuka Yellamma deity, the child stays away from home to worship Yellamma, begs for alms to survive, and performs the folk-dance form of Jogati in praise of the goddess.

There are exceptions everywhere and one such phenomenal soul I met in Bengaluru was Manjamma Jogati, the first trans woman in the country who is the President of the Karnataka’s Janapada Academy since 2019. She was felicitated with the honour of Padma Shri by the President of India Ramnath Kovind in 2021 in New Delhi for her incredible efforts in the domain of North Karnataka, South Maharashtra, and a part of Andhra Pradesh’s famous Jogathi Folk Dance forms.

In this vein, one of Manjamma’s unique dance forms is where she places the Yellamma deity on her head and dances. For the last 40 years, Manjamma is in the profession of folk dancing.

People fondly call her ‘Amma’. Always a big red bindi on the forehead with sindoor, countless glass bangles with a fascination for gajara (flowers) in the hair are Amma’s style statements. Today with her 11 members team, Amma through her registered trust - Padmashri Mata B Manjamma Jogathi Pratistana aims to work for the Trans community and their legal rights, train Trans men and women in Folk art forms, offer skill development training, provide shelter to old age trans community. She is developing and conserving Jogati Padya (singing), nirtya (dance) forms and brought in various nonverbal dance movements in the performing arts. Today many Jogati communities are learning and are giving stage performances of the art form all over India. In 2010, Manjamma received the Rajyotsava Award from the Karnataka Government.

Born in a middle-class family in Karnataka’s Kallkamba village near Bellari district on May 20th, 1957 Manjunatha Shetty aka Manjamma was one of the blessed children out of the 21 siblings. But among those children, only four survived. Amma’s voice Vikram B.K. an engineer by profession and a contemporary dancer connected with Amma in 2017.

He told a detailed story of Amma to me and said, “Manjunatha studied till class 10th. With a male body but a woman from deep inside, Manjunatha was inclined towards girly stuff and activities since childhood. He got bullied quite a lot by other children. He loved to wear her mother’s sarees at home and helped her mother with daily kitchen chores. His father and brother were entirely against Manjunatha’s behaviour.”

Feeling isolated and ignored by her family Manjamma tried to take poison but the almighty had different plans for her. At the young age of 18 yrs. through proper rituals, Manjunatha was adopted into the culture of Jogati life.

From here Manjunatha became Manjamma and left the house. She was surviving in a very difficult situation by begging on the streets. During this time, she got molested by four men. This incident shook her inside and she tried to finish her life. But with a life-changing thought, she stood up again and decided that she will never let down herself. Then onwards Amma started selling idlis and taking tuition classes.

In Devanagari town where Amma was living saw a father-son duo. Son was dancing and father was singing with a special instrument. Amma with enthusiasm showed interest to learn this art form and joined them. A trans woman ‘Kaalavva Jogati’ approached Amma and asked her to join their group of artists transwomen as they wanted some active members in the group to perform and do street plays/dance with them. Amma agreed and started contributing her acting skills to their play and learned the group’s dance form as well. Since then Amma never looked back and after Kaalavva’s death, her legacy Amma is taken forward.

One fine day while going for a performance Amma was sitting with Vikram at the Bangalore airport and surprisingly shared something interesting with him and said, “Vikram, it is difficult to accept that four Idlis that I used to sell in 1 rupee today the same idlis cost so expensive today, i.e., One plate with two idlis costs Rs. 200/-. Time is changing so rapidly.” In the end, with a heavy heart, Amma stated to me, “It’s an irony that we are living an isolated life. People have a fear to mingle with us. Despite getting the legal rights from the government, a society with a changed mindset needs to accept us all. There is still a lot more things that needs to be done.”