About Book
"So one day I met some eunuchs in a park, and they made me friendship. I felt very happy to meet them and very comfortable for the first time in my life. They were singing and dancing very well. After one week they invited me to stay in their house with them."
"Myself Mona Ahmed" is the first book by New Delhi-based photographer Dayanita Singh. It is the story of eunuch Mona Ahmed whom Singh met and began photographing more than ten years ago. Mona Ahmed is a member of a secret community that normally does not permit access to outsiders. We follow the daily life and the rituals of the eunuchs, are invited to their parties and ceremonies, and learn about prejudice and the reality of a eunuch's life. We witness the story of Mona's castration and the loss of her adopted child. Mona is a member of the real third gender. She is a very sensitive person, as her moving e-mails to the publisher of Scalo show. To preserve Mona's own voice, and to give her the power of expressing herself, these emails are published in their original form, with as little editing as possible.
About Author
Dayanita Singh (born 1961) is an Indian photographer, lives and works in New Delhi and now also is partly based in Goa, who is known for her portraits of India's urban middle and upper class families. Most of her work is in black-and-white, though of late she has also delved into colour, and starting in 1980s she worked as a photo journalist on assignments for international magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, before switching to documentary-style and portrait photography. Over the years, she has published several books, including Myself Mona Ahmed (2001) and Go Away Closer (2007). and shown at galleries in Rome, New York, Berlin, London, Milan and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Many of her works, are now part of the collection of National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi. She received the 2008 Prince Claus Award. and also the 2008 Gardner Photography.