This is a term used for a group of transgender people, or they are also known as the third gender. They are neither man nor a woman. Actually the process of becoming Hijras is an uncomfortable feeling with the biological sex or gender identity does not conform to their biological sex.
The group of people, they usually live in group or community, and in year the evidence says about the population of transgender community is half a million to 2 million individuals in India. For last many centuries as I had read and in my observation also, they have regularly performed at wedding ceremony, in childbirths, buying a new house, new factory inauguration and similar, in the exchange of money.
Along with this as much as I know they bless you or can assign curses. But as we all know there is a group of upper class people in India and for them the blessings will cost much higher, often it is also a possibility that they will lift up their skirt or saree, if you are not agreed to the price. They are not only the singers but dancers and musicians also.
For Hijras, often functioning as third gender, access to education, jobs and good facilities are scarce. Because they are judged as different part of society, they have often been in a life of begging, prostitution or extortion.
The contrast is, on one hand they are very important group of people and have power to bless or curse, and on the other hand sometimes they are treated as the unnatural part of the society and as object of fear through superstition. There must be equal rights for all human beings without any Discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
