Step 9: Stay out of trouble

Pakistan is a city of confusing incongruities. Last night I found myself sitting on a rooftop in Lahore's red light district, smoking shisha as I sat beside a statue of the Virgin Mary, in the shadow of the great domes of Badshahi mosque, which shone an eggshell blue in the moonlight.

The restaurant, called Cooco's Nest, is run by artist Iqbal Hussain. Himself the bastard offspring of a prostitute, he grew up among the brothels of the red light district. His sister was also in "the profession" and he used to go out and sleep on the pavement when she brought customers home. Cooco's Nest was set up orginally to provide an alternative means of revenue for the local women, who, it is said, cook the food. In any case the array of succulent kebabs, naans, parathas, biryanis and curries is impressive, and the taste heightened by the fact that plates are barely visible in the sporadic, flickering candlelight.

All cities have red light districts. Lahore's is slightly different in the sense that it has another quirk to boast: one of the largest communities of hijras in South Asia. I remember seeing hijras begging at stoplights in Delhi - alongside the women that stood there with their scarred, raggedy babies, begging for rupees in tattered saris. The hijras found their own turf, and when they approached your rickshaw or car it was fairly confusing to hear their deep voices and see the grey patches of stubble on their chins. If you refused them, they often chanted some incantation or otherwise stroked and caressed you for the purposes of humiliation (especially men).

Hijras profess to be known as neither male nor female, but a 'third sex'. Some are transgender, some born men, others androgynous. Some do 'reassign their gender' - once the castration process was done without anaesthetic in a public ceremony of rebirth. Today, most are less hysterical, opting as they do for backstreet surgeons.

Traditionally the courtesans or 'dancing girls' at the courts of princes and maharajahs, they are now often the dirty secrets of the 'upstanding' men of society, many of whom are already married, but some of whom have even married their alternative paramours. They refer to themselves as 'wedding performers' but in reality - some of them prostitutes, others dancers, some beggars, or a mixture of all three - they have no employment prospects and are shut away, shunned by society.

But Pakistan is becoming slowly more open to the idea of accepting the 'third sex'. The government are in talks to add a third 'gender' option to the national ID card, and are looking to change law in order to protect the hijras' employment and economic rights.

There was a great article in The Guardian and some spectacular photos that can be found here.

"No one is gay in Pakistan" laughed a friend of mine over tea a couple of days ago. She winked. "But if there were..." She proceeded to tell me that most educated members of society accept homosexual relationships. Not so with women. A heterosexual affair results, at best, in social castration for women. A homosexual affair, for a man, results in little more than the odd whisper and giggle behind society's closed doors. A homosexual relationship for a woman doesn't bear thinking about. Having just been to fashion week, I can attest to the fact that flamboyant gays are alive and well , surviving and thriving in Pakistan.

On the rooftop of Cooco's nest, amidst the catholic statues, Buddhist busts and pagan visages, Pakistan's contradictions reign. We stub out our last cigarettes, pay the bill and head out, past the dimly lit doorways and hidden caverns, through Lahore's underground, and one of Pakistan's most open secrets.