Teenaged 'Sangita' becomes 'Sangit'

Varanasi, Sep 8 (UNI) Sixteen-year-old Sangita, who dreamt of serving in the Indian Army one day as a lady officer, now hopes to join it as Sangit, a man, all because of surgery performed by a pediatrician here.

''I wanted to become a lady officer in the army, despite coming to know in media about not so easy life for women officers in the soldier's fatigues. Now I am happy that I can work hard to fulfill the dream of guarding the country as Sangit, the male soldier,'' Sangit said just after the successful surgery by Dr Mrigendra Kumar on Wednesday to remove congenital deformities associated with hermaphrodites.

''Sangita was a girl without a uterus, but with male predominance manifested through miniscule penis and testis inside the stomach. We advised her father that the teenager, who is unlikely to become a natural mother, could very well become a healthy father in future through the corrective surgery termed as masculinary genitoplasty,'' Dr Kumar told UNI here after performing the challenging surgery at Care Hospital.

''The surgery has been successful and Sangit, three hours earlier a pony-tailed Sangita, will become a full-fledged healthy male over the next one and half years,'' Dr Kumar, who claimed to have performed three similar surgeries in the past said.

At least 10 cases of this congenital deformity have been reported at the hospital till now from 14 East Uttar Pradesh districts. Of these, two have been successfully transformed into female from male and the remaining one from male to female, Dr Kumar said.

He said such cases, medically termed as ambiguous genitalia in hermaphrodites was relatively a rare occurrence. The corrective surgery is challenging, but in 90 per cent cases it is successful, he added.

The surgery of Sangita, the daughter of pavement vendor Manu Lal Maurya and Manno Dev,i entailed two phases -- the masculinary genitoplasty and Uretheroplasty.

While the first phase involved Orchidopaxy (bringing out testicles from the stomach), scrotoplasty (building scrotal sack) and penis lengthening, the second phase to be performed within six months from now will involve creation of a urinary passage for Sangit through the male genital, Dr Kumar added.

The entire transformation from female to male will be complemented through hormonal therepy, to help Sangit gain authentic male features.

While, Dr Kumar and his surgical team put their medical skills to good use perform the rare surgery, the teenager's parents, termed the doctors as messengers from god.

''It is god only who created Sangita, but with traces of a future Sangit and it is his angels in the form of doctors, who have reversed the sex with consent of God,'' said Mannu Maurya, who peddles his wares in Sunderpur locality here.

''Beta ho ya beti swasthaya rahe yehi humari kamna hai,'' (son or daughter, we want them to remain healthy) said Manno Devi, earlier the mother of three daughters and two sons, who now has three sons and two daughters.

While the two brothers Anil (14) and Sunil (10) are happy at having another brother to play 'cricket and gulli danda', sister Jyoti, half of Sangita's age, is equally excited at now being the only daughter of the family, as the eldest sister Babita (22) has been married off.

The girl friends of Sangita, including Jyoti and Pinki are happy that they will now have a boy-friend in Sangit to share in class nine at Lal Bahadur Shiksha Sansthan, the school at Sunderpur.

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