• Home
• Forums
• About Us
• Archives
• Advertisement
• Submit Articles
• Contacts

RSS FEED

• News
• Sports
• About Town
• Opinion
• Economy
• Feature
• Community
• Voices
• Editorial
• Happenings
• InSummary
• Polls
• Weekly Briefly
• Expressions
• Ap Tsara Column
• Dzongkha News
• BOfocus
• My Page
• Magazine

The Geisha of Purple Lounge

Observer’s Jurmi Chhowing discovers there’s a gender issue at stake on a night out in Paro town.

Its late in the evening and the bars and cafes are coming alive. There’s Ringpung Dzong in the background, shining like a beacon up on the hill. The symmetric fortress overlooks the town below, in a benign way. The floodlights further illuminate the dzong’s imposing aura. The Ta-Dzong above it is similarly lit up; there is an unmistakable sense of grandeur about it all, at once alluring and beguiling.

Back in town, under the gaze of the magnificent monuments and next to the main thoroughfare, is a bar-café called the “Purple Lounge.” Another form of revelation in splendid colours is about to display herself here. It is not too long before she walks in. She smiles in acknowledgement,as she scans the lounge with her bright mascara eyes. She is dressed in a full black skirt with long slits and fishnet stockings;a light gold scarf adorns it all. Meet Dechen Seldon. She is about 5:6” tall in stilettos. The lounge is where she spends most of her time. She helps out in the kitchen and keeps the regulars entertained, with her easy charm, uninhibited innocence and graceful dances. She is, in all her artistic displays, the “geisha of Purple Lounge.”

The irony is she is not really a girl, not in the physiological sense. The memoirs of this young geisha were not all roses and petals. It seems like an entertaining tale, it was anything but an entertaining tale. There was a time when she went by a masculine name, Dechen Phurba. She was born a boy. The second youngest of four siblings, Dechen is now fifteen years old. His tender years have seen him spar with his military father, a conservative mother (who he now says is supportive) and a society that defines specific roles for men and women. He was neither, for he was born a boy who felt more at home hanging out with the girls and playing with dolls.

“I feel like this is who I am supposed to be,” he says in a soft tone that has obviously become a constant theme.

Dechen says the feeling of being a girl was strong and natural ever since he was a little kid. That it was reinforced in his natural attitudes; shying away from boys, preferring the feminine side of things; dolls, make-ups, dressing up, cooking, cleaning and the like. This was in stark contrast to the conventional environment in which he grew up. His father gave him lectures on how to “behave like a boy,” his mother chided him for his love of things “girlish.”

Going to school in Dechhencholing was not all that pleasant. He tries to present positive
notes from his school days, but the taunts far out-numbered the sympathetic nods. The boys mocked him, the girls could not get around to accepting his feminine personality and the gho made him feel awkward. The teachers lectured and advised him on his queerness, which was obviously a taboo. He was commanded to play like a boy and behave like a man.

“I avoided them whenever I could,” he says.

Drawing selective memories, he says philosophically, “It feels like a past sin, it seems like this is who I am supposed to be.”

A brief pause follows and then he declares, “What to do! It’s a gift from god!”

When his father was transferred to the RBA wing in Shaba in Paro, Dechen was enrolled in Shaba MSS in class nine. There were tougher times ahead. The external pressures of accepted conventional behavior collided with his own sense of who he really should be. Thus, not too long ago, Dechen Phurba decided the time was right for him to come out of the closet and proclaim his true identity. He changed his name to Dechen Seldon and started dressing as any young girl does. Now he’s transformed into a charming fifteen year old teenage girl, with a passion for dancing. Dechen says he can dance the Boedra, Zhungdra, Rigsel, Dzongkha, Hindi, Nepali and Tibetan.

A Shakira song blares, it seems appropriate, the song goes, “hips don’t lie.” He suddenly transforms into a graceful dancer. His gestures paint the beats of the music in the air, with his slender figure gyrating in perfect sync. It is a tasteful display; there is not a hint of vulgarism in the movements. He takes everyone’s breath away. An admiring patron says “she could easily become a choreographer.”

He says dancing comes naturally.There’s no doubt about it. He can more then shake a leg or a hip.And he can spin a wool too, mainly the thitha. He weaves keras and presents them as gifts to family members and friends.

Though the going has been tough and traumas have been abundant, he talks optimistically about his troubled childhood, his present sense of relief and freedom and in hopeful tunes about the coming scenarios.

In time, Dechen’s parents and siblings have come to accept him as he is. He still lives with them. His dreams, he says righteously, are to send his parents off to a trip to Bodhgaya and then get himself “upgraded.” He talks about the financial burden of undergoing such an operation. But Dechen is hopeful of starting a business of his own, a bar, he says, and perhaps save enough money to finally become what he was born to be;A woman in all her effeminate organic glory.

But before Dechen can undertake the bodily transformation, he would like to have some stones in his heels thrown out. One of which is the gender tag. He says the “boy’s room” never made him comfortable. He lingers in the past for a moment and talks about his memories of the commode. The rest room seemed like a symbolical and a literal image of his inner dilemma. He neither fit in the “girl’s room” nor the boys’.

When he comes of age at eighteen, Dechen says he would like to have his gender officially documented as a “female.” There is an air of hope and optimism when he delves into the future. Asked about marriage, he says he is not contemplating it, that he would rather look after his siblings and parents.

Asked what made him come out of the closet, he says it was the “right thing to do.” And that he could not go on wearing a boy’s gho and pretending to be one when all his instincts told him otherwise. Then comes the bombshell, he says he left school about “three weeks back!” and the reason he decided not to show up at school anymore was because he had to wear the gho, which had assumed a dual symbol of entrapment and freedom.

He finally chose to set himself free from the snare of the gho and its shackling bearings. Dechen says he just could not do it. Asked if wearing a kira would persuade him to go back to school, he says, “absolutely, if they let me wear a kira, I’ll go back to school and complete my studies.”

He hopes that his decision to be true to himself would also encourage other “closet-transvestites” to come out and proudly demonstrate their inner yearnings to be who they are, not as how society would like them to be.

It’s now late in the night and there’s talk about another entertainment complex, called the “Gaadhen.” Some of the “Purple Lounge” patrons make a move for the other joint. The place is bigger and swankier. It is filled with people and a good mixture of locals and tourists are enjoying a medley of songs belted out by the in-house band. The place is abuzz with sensual excitement. Everyone’s staring at the little stage where the performers are and then comes an announcement.

The name Dechen Seldon is announced by the house M.C. He comes onto the stage, fearless and confident. Once the music begins, he takes the audience away with his solo-virtuosity.

This boy can dance or this boy can out-do the girls is the murmur among the viewers.
The audience is all applause and he’s back mixing with the crowd. It is not a bewildered crowd; it looks like everyone knows him and has come to accept him. As the night wears on, everyone begins to forget the teenage boy and realize this is indeed a blossoming girl in every sense of the word, deserving of respect.

The only thing going around palpable in the air is this hope, that she gets her “upgrade.” It seems cruel not to have it done, and it seems natural that, that should be next logical step in her evolution.Then the entertaining sad tale could end as all fairy tales do. Where the frog becomes a handsome prince, Cinderella finds the right sandal and Dechen Seldon and Dechen Phurba are finally combined, in body and in spirit. Then, running a bar of her own, the “graceful geisha of purple lounge” hopes to regale newcomers with her own memoirs.

Comments

Recently Updated

• Nganglam needs the same favours
• Yangphel open archery tournament in the quarters
• Meet the wicked lady of Bhutanese films
• From dung to clean energy
• Contractors appeal to PM to solve stone shortage crisis
• Villagers cry foul of farm road alignment
• Tor Jap – hurling ritual cakes
• PTC teachers need professional incentives
• Tudors win easy over Aspens
• 136 power tillers distributed

Popular Articles

• Building and selling skills (535)
• Coming of the new God (270)
• Bhutan’s GDP growth up (80)
• Archery range still threatens lives (55)
• In peace, the King sleeps (40)
• First Bhutanese to run world-class marathon (378)
• Bhutan runs NY marathon (333)
• Burning a mountain with a single thought (203)
• Buddhas and Bars (159)
• Of those 6 months in Phuenthsoling (51)

Copyright © 2010 Bhutan Observer · Powered by: Bhutan Web Solutions · Log in
Home  ·  About Us  ·  Forums  ·  Privacy Policy  ·  Contact