I was watching India’s Got Talent (a talent competition) on TV on Sunday night. There was an amazing dancer on the show. A child wearing a beautiful dress, with stunning hair and makeup, around eight years old. He danced extremely well. Yes, the child was in fact a boy. This was almost impossible to distinguish, and certainly not by the way he danced.
The judges were quite astonished. One of them commented that he found it quite disturbing to start off with — this boy who looked and danced like a girl. He soon forgot about it though, because the dancing was so convincing.
The boy’s parents were asked why they dressed their child up like a girl, and encouraged him to dance like a girl. “Because it’s fun”, they replied.
Indeed, this bizarre idea of fun seems to be quite widespread in India. The first time I encountered it was when a friend put a baby photo, of one of our mates dressed up as girl, on Facebook. I thought he couldn’t be serious. But, I recognised the guy’s nose.
I noticed more pictures of boys dressed up as girls when I was looking through my inlaw’s photo albums. My sister-in-law wanted a girl, and judging by the pictures, she dressed her youngest son up as one often.
Then, I saw a photo of my husband when he was young. I’d always wanted to see what he looked like when he was a little boy. However, much to my dismay, this little boy was wearing a frilly outfit and had so much kajal (eyeliner) on that I couldn’t even tell it was him!
Strangely though, I’ve never seen a photo of a girl dressed up as a boy. I asked my husband about it. According to him, Indian girls are never dressed up as boys. It’s only boys who are dressed up as girls!
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Thanks Abdullah for the info!
Yes Sharell, you are right. Many Indian parents dress up their little boys as girls. I find it strange too. I have a boy and two girls. I never dressed up my boy as a girl but I did definitely dress up my girls as boys. Girls can look like boys but not the reverse.
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