The year 2000, the turn of the century, proved to be a landmark in many ways. The world did not end, as it was predicted. With the arrival of the internet in the 1990s, unverified news and hoaxes were doing the rounds. One claim held that the year, nicknamed Y2K, would witness a “millennium bug” that would cause chaos globally. Planes were expected to fall from the sky, computers were to reset themselves and missiles were to fire on their own. But like many doomsday prophesies, this one fell flat as well.

Naiyla’s world, however, did crumble around her in the years that followed.

Despite the anger, altercations and questions about her gender, Naiyla had not been able to accept life as a girl. She knew she was a boy, but people around her were hell-bent on proving otherwise. She kept the reality of her body buried deep inside by wearing boys’ clothes, keeping her hair short and hanging around with boys. That was until the day her body made it impossible for her to ignore it.

At 13 years of age, when she was in Class Seven, Naiyla had begun to menstruate. “I always knew that I was a boy. But when puberty hit, I became aware of how I was different from the other boys. There isn’t much of a difference between boys and girls until menstruation starts. But when I had my first brush with periods, I realised something was wrong. It was not me. This was not how a boy was supposed to grow up,” Aryan recounted.

Menstruation is synonymous with womanhood. Even tomboys must accept the fact that there is a time each month when they must own up to their femininity. They can run away from people, but how can they escape their bodies? As a pre-teen, the sight of blood on her underpants was a shock for Aryan. For Naiyla, it was the first reality check.

There was no escape. It was a woman’s body. After society had questioned her identity, Naiyla’s own body was pushing it right into her face. She could not stop it, no matter how badly she wanted to. Her gender dysphoria had just got real.

When little girls transition into adulthood, they are gently guided through puberty by older women around them. Naiyla had nobody. Her male friends would not relate to this. She could not approach her own family for fear of being placed in the ironclad silo of a girl, an idea she still hated. Nature was sentencing her back to the prison she was trying to flee.

While her body responded to the hormones just as any other girl’s, her mind refused to make peace with the transformation. No member of her family, man or woman, had experienced what she was going through. The pain in her heart was manifesting in her body. Even her stepmother was not around. Naiyla was at Parvez Chacha and Tahira Chachi’s house when she got her first period.

“I would skip school when I had my period,” said Aryan. Naiyla would keep a count of the days until she could return to being a boy. Her academics and training, too, were placed on a sabbatical every month.

For her schoolmates, she was a boy. And boys don’t get a period. “I would cry and wonder why this was happening to a boy. I missed school a lot, but I could not go since everyone believed I was a boy,” Aryan said.

When Tahira, her aunt, got to know, she did not immediately try to counsel Naiyla. She was afraid it would ignite an expected bout of anger. “Chachi called Payal Ma and explained what was happening,” Aryan recollected.

Not realising how adolescence would bring about major changes in her body, Naiyla, for a brief moment, thought she had been hurt. The first time she noticed spotting, she did not tell anyone at home. “I did not know how the female body worked or the changes that girls underwent. I did not know much about menstruation, in fact,” Aryan said about his tryst with womanhood. Her brain was wired to think like a boy.

With the period came symptoms like backaches. Then there were acute cramps. Naiyla fought off the idea of approaching the women in the family for the whole day. By evening, the aches had become unbearable. Her back and pelvis hurt. “That is when I told Chachi. She immediately understood but didn’t say anything to me,” recalled Aryan.

The next day, Tahira called Payal over. The two of them sat Naiyla down to explain a period to her and tell her how to use sanitary pads. Predictably, the conversation made the young girl angry. She was suffering twice over – the pain of the injustice meted out to her along with the pain gnawing at her back and abdomen.

Why is this happening to me? Why should I use a pad? This should not have happened to me. Naiyla was besieged by thoughts of betrayal. “I had these thoughts because nowhere in my wildest imagination did I believe myself to be a girl. If someone tried to convince me that I was one, I would be furious,” Aryan said.

“Despite getting my period, I did not accept that my body was that of a woman. But, as per nature’s plan, I started to get them monthly,” Aryan shared his dilemma. “I had periods for almost six years. That was the worst part. While bleeding, I continued to pose as a boy and hang out with them all day,” he said, reliving the trauma that wore him out throughout his school life.

While Naiyla had surreptitiously been using the boys’ toilets so far, she had more to hide now. A “boy” found to be carrying sanitary pads to school would have been an unequivocal giveaway. She paid careful attention to concealing her sanitary pads, especially when she was outdoors with male friends.

To top it all, her athletic career was in turmoil. Parents of competitors had started protesting about Naiyla’s wins because they took her to be a boy. Already facing this turbulence, she feared becoming the victim of nasty locker room jokes among fellow sportspersons.

“I was an athlete. I had to travel with my team for competitions in other cities and states. I would carry sanitary pads, but I ensured they remained hidden from everyone else,” Aryan said, talking of his pubescent phase as a distant memory. “Even now, I can’t believe I lived like that. It is one of those things I don’t want to talk about or share with anyone,” he confessed.

For Aryan, who did not even want to look at his naked body in the mirror back then, puberty was challenging. He labelled the sight of the girl’s body he was born with “disgusting and depressing”. Dealing with menstruation was beyond distressing. It was something he did not want but was still happening. Things were spiralling out of control, but since there was no way around it, he had to accept it.

Naiyla did not know what her future held. She would stand in front of the mirror and look at herself as an abomination. There was not an iota of admiration in her for the feminine form. The only feeling her body evoked in her was an irreconcilable feeling of disgust. The tender growth of her breasts had also started to show. She desperately wanted to cover it all up.

By the time she cleared her Class Ten board exams, Naiyla had begun adjusting to the womanhood that was setting in. She was managing her dual life well in front of others. But in her mind, she was sick of it. Armaan had chosen this juncture in her life to talk to Mansi, changing not only the dynamics of Naiyla’s friendships but also testing her equation with the rest of the world.

The facade that she had carried all these years had come off without a warning. It was game over for Naiyla Pasha, the poster boy of St Andrew Scots Senior Secondary School. She hated herself more than ever; the shame was overpowering. Depression was one stop away from claiming her. “That was when I realised I needed to fix it, that I had to do something to make myself all right,” Aryan said.

Naiyla had also briefly stopped going to school out of humiliation. It was only a matter of time before her parents found out what was happening there. They felt she was being bullied at school. “His class teacher told us that he would be taken care of and asked us to keep sending him to school,” said Prince, her cousin.

Naiyla reminded herself that she was the ringleader and decided to take command of the situation. With Naresh, Prince and the rest of her coterie, she started beating up those who spoke ill of her.

But despite landing bruises on others and making more enemies than friends, she felt hollow inside. The respite she chased was not to be found. She knew that the accusations were not going to erase themselves. Her period was not going to go away. She was transforming into a woman. No amount of beating others would reverse that.

Each month for the next six years, Naiyla went through the physical and mental pain of menstruation, trying not to let it become her nemesis. It was not until 2011 that Aryan finally walked the path of getting rid of his old identity. The trauma of menstruation was the trigger for Naiyla, but the turnaround was preceded by an inexplicable return to her parents’ home. She wasn’t prepared for any of the events about to unfold in her life. It was a playbook writing itself in near contempt of everything that she stood for. And it was far from over.

Excerpted with permission from Aryan Pasha: The Untold Story of India’s First Transgender Bodybuilding Champion, Apra Kuchhal, HarperCollins India.

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