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Towards the end of the passage, however, it becomes elear that when Sulekha claims, ‘I use the same speech as the person I meet’, she actually means that she makes her speech correspond to the level of familiarity she feels with the addressee. Her insistence that she uses familiar address terminology with women but the respect-ful ap [‘you’] and third-person plural verb form with men suggests that she sees ‘women’s speech’ and ^cmen’s speech’ as serving two mutually exclusive functions: the former solidarity, the latter dis-tance. According to Sulekha, the distance which characterizes her speech with men is necessary for the pursuit of her own romantic interests: she employs polite verb, adjective and pronominal forms in order to heighten the gender polarity between herself and a potential małe partner. By assuming a submissive and coąuettish posturę, she is able to have what she refers to as ha ha hi hi - an interjection which connotes pleasure, laughter and flirtation.¹⁶

In light of both Rupa’s and Sulekha’s clearly articulated reflections on their altemating uses of feminine and masculine speech, it is interesting that Megha, a member of another Banaras community, adamantly insists that hijras never speak as men in any circumstances. Like Rupa, Megha creates a number of feminine-marked phrases as examples of hijra speech, together with a