Voicing Gender Fluidity: Trauma and Survival in Manobi Bandyopadhyay’s A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi

Abstract

Manobi Bandyopadhyay’s A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi (2017) presents a nuanced exploration of gender fluidity, trauma, and survival within contemporary Indian society. Her autobiography destabilises normative binaries by framing gender as a continuum, while simultaneously foregrounding the systemic marginalisation faced by transgender individuals across familial, educational, and institutional spaces. Through candid narration, Bandyopadhyay illuminates the affective, social, and political dimensions of her lived experience, including early school harassment, familial rejection, and professional challenges, thereby articulating resilience as both a personal and political practice. The narrative reveals how personal struggles are never isolated but are intimately tied to broader structures of discrimination that deny transgender people recognition, dignity, and opportunities. By tracing her journey from vulnerability to empowerment, Bandyopadhyay exposes the everyday negotiations of identity that accompany social invisibility while also highlighting the transformative power of education, activism, and perseverance. Her text reclaims narrative authority, challenges epistemic violence, and asserts agency in both public and private spheres. Ultimately, A Gift of Goddess Lakshmi demonstrates that survival itself constitutes a radical act of defiance against systemic erasure, while also offering a vision of hope, solidarity, a social change for future generations.