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Through the use of masculine-marked postpositions like ka^m [‘of^m’] and masculine-marked verb forms like rah raha^m hai [‘he is living^m’], Megha is perhaps signalling that Sulekha is not only estranged from her, but also inferior to her. Her use of the mascu-line singular, then, approximates in Hindi the use of the pronoun tu, which can signal contempt for an inferior as well as heightened intimacy. (Although comparatively infreąuent, Megha sometimes refers to her guru affectionately in the mascułine singular instead of the morę respectful feminine or mascułine plural, such as when she at one point turned to us, paused, and emphatically pronounced merżi™ Channu [^łmy^m Channu’].)

A similar sort of distancing by use of the mascułine gender occurs whenever Sulekha refers to Muslim hijras, with whom, as a Hindu, she feels somewhat at odds. Although Muslims and Hindu hijras often live together harmoniously in the same communities -an arrangement rarely found in mainstream Banaras where the ten-sion between Muslims and Hindus is quite pervasive - Sulekha seems to feel threatened by Muslim hijras, sińce they hołd power-ful positions within the Banaras hijra network, and indeed, throughout all of northern India. The contempt Sulekha feels towards Muslim hijras is reflected in her employment of third-per-son masculine-marked verb forms when Muslim hijras act as subjects, as in the short narrative reproduced in (17):