Doha: A woman in Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India, disguised as a man for 36 years for the ease of ‘raising her daughter safely in a patriarchal society’.
A widow in her early twenties Petchiammal found it difficult to find jobs and faced harassment at her workplaces like construction sites, teashops and hotels. She told The New Indian Express that she decided to change her attire into a shirt and lungi (a cloth commonly worn by men in the state) and took a man’s name Muthu.
The mother and daughter resettled into a new place and lived her life as a man with all identification cards mentioning her as a man. Only her daughter Shanmugasundari and close relatives knew her original identity.
The daughter is now married and settled, but Petchiammal, now 57- years old, said she would remain 'Muthu' forever.
