india.blogs.nytimes.com – By Michael Edison Hayden
Human beings often seek spiritual healing out of a sense of psychological pain. In the case of India’s hijra population, a group with a tradition that spans back until at least the Kama Sutra period, their sources of pain are sociologically complex, poorly documented, but difficult to deny: According to outreach groups like the Mumbai-based gay rights organization Humsafar Trust, India’s hijra population has a staggering rate of H.I.V. infection that numbers somewhere between 29 and 49 percent.