On 1 March 2004 a prominent Calcutta newspaper ran the following advice: “Fixed cost: For birth of a boy: Rs. 3001, for birth of a girl: Rs. 1,501 and for a wedding: Rs. 3501. The next time you’re harassed by eunuchs demanding a five-figure sum for a birth in the family, ask for the rate card.”1 Too often the literature on transnational sexualities portrays sexuality as being constituted outside capital, outside political economies, outside transnational or global finance. Yet, as the story of this rate card implies, sexuality and capital can be thoroughly integrated and implicated in the constitution of persons and subjects. On the one hand there are eunuchs, also known as hijras or “third gender,” who call themselves Aravani. On the other hand is the money that they “demand” when they show up at the door, as is their implicit right, following the birth of a child in a household. At issue is the introduction of a rate card system. Rate cards, with their lists of fixed prices for services rendered, distance traveled, or interest accrued, are a familiar feature of an Indian cityscape where bargaining still governs many quotidian economic transactions. The seemingly seamless negotiations that established a rate card were reportedly the result of “a gentlemen’s agreement” in Calcutta between two parties, a statewide organization of Aravani and two members of the CPM, the ruling party at the time in the state of Bengal in eastern India.
