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18. Mehtas decision to use the term lewdness in reference to the hijras is clearly infłu-enced by their exhibitionism as well. He later remarks, “I once saw four handsome Pavaiya youth about 20 years old expose their backsides in the most crowded locality of Bhadra in Ahmedabad.” As with Manucci and Bernier in their descriptions of the court eunuchs, however, Mehta also notes the hijra’s faithful and trustworthy naturę: “But on the whole the Pavaiyas have the reputation of being particularly honest, loyal, reliable and incapable of be-trayal. Their life is simple, their wants are simple, and they have no wife and children to worry about. It is an account of this well-known trait of honesty that they flourish as sell-ers of milk, because it is believed that they would not adulterate it. Usually their instinctive behaviour and modę of thought is masculine” (1945-1946: 51).

19.1 should add that Verma also asserts that women have their own verbal strategies for indicating “sex-superiority,” namely, what he refers to as “pleading innocent” (1971: 85).