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the start of this passage, she later constructs herself as feminim when viewing herself as part of the larger community, a communi-ty which aggressively identifies itself as non-masculine. When explaining how she and the other hijras in her community curse. for example, she employs feminine first-person plural verb forms. among them jhagxa kar legi^f [‘we will fight^f’], bolegi^{ [‘we will speak^f’J, gali bhi degi^f [‘we will also give^f curses’], kahegf [‘we wil] say^f’]. Similarly, what she earlier defined as caca^m [‘paternal uncle’’ becomes mausi^{ or khalcf [‘maternal aunt’ ] in this passage, a switch which is consistent with the other hijras’ use of ma^{ [‘mother’] when addressing their guru and dadĆ [‘paternal grandmother’] when addressing their guru’s guru. It is perhaps this same distinc-tion between terms of reference and terms of address which explains why Rupa refers to her guru as dada^m in the discussion directly preceding this passage, but as dadi^f when reconstructing a group interaction that revolves around her.

A similar sort of shift is enacted by Sulekha in excerpt (11) belo w, when she explains how the most well-known hijras in Banaras, namely Channu, Idu, and Chanda, came to be so impor-tant within the hijra community. When describing how hijras reach positions of power in the hijra network, and how she herself will someday aquire such a position, Sulekha switches back and forth between feminine and masculine reference. Like Rupa, Sulekha describes the development of the hijra lineage in Banaras by using primarily masculine terminology: dada^m [‘paternal grandfather’], nati^m [‘grandson’], parnati^m [‘great grandson’], and cela^m [‘małe disciole’1.