Back in India, Rose landed up in a call centre. She was still dressing up as a boy though it put a lot of pressure on her mind. To break free from all the shackles, she dressed as a girl and roamed around when she was not in the office. Many of her relatives and neighbours saw her and all hell broke loose in the family. They thought if "he" married, things would change.
"It was a total shock to the family. My mother cried, hit me and sent me out of the house. She was hurt but she hurt me very badly. To this day, my mother doesn't want me to be a transgender but my father has accepted me now. My mother thinks I am confused and she tells me if I try, my mind can be changed!"
During this confused period, she quit her job too. Once she made sure who she actually was, she wrote back to her employers saying she was a transgender and she wanted the job back.
But she was rejected. "When I applied as a man, I got the job and when I applied as a transgender, I was rejected though I was extremely good in my job earlier. Now, I develop web sites from my home because no company wants me to work in their premises. Not because I am not good at what I do; only because I am a transgender. Though I have money, nobody rents me a house in a good locality."
Rose stresses that the society has to come to terms with the fact that there is a third gender among them. "I get teased by both men and women. You don't know how painful it is. The other day, I was coming back from a temple on my bike. A group of girls while crossing the road looked at me, laughed aloud and said, 'Is this a man or a woman?' What do they gain by knowing whether I am a man or a woman? I was so angry that I felt like slapping them and telling them that they all would get a trans-gender child. How will they feel then?"
Rose is a staunch believer in God and cries in front of him and asks him all the time, "Why did you make me like this? There is no life style prescribed for me. The society looks at me as a cheap person and treats me like an untouchable. I was so upset that I used to ask God, what did you have in mind when you created people like me? Till now, I haven't got any answer.
"But in my case, God has given me a chance to work for the community. Sometimes I hate my body, sometimes I hate my mind… I should have been either a boy or a girl but now I do not know who I am."
"I will not marry. I will not have children. So, what is the aim in my life? What do I have to look forward to in life? That is why I have decided to make myself useful for my community."
Rose always had the desire to be in the media. Star Vijay accepted her proposal and she plans to take it forward from there. However, she doesn't want to restrict her media career to the Tamil language alone. Well versed in English, Rose plans to move to national television soon. "I am an activist because I work for a suppressed and oppressed community. But I don't want to be labelled a transgender media personality. I want to be a part of the mainstream Indian media. But my eyes and vision are truly international like Oprah Winfrey because the issues I will be talking about are universal."
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