OdishaLIVE Bureau
The story of struggle and success
The story of Aishawarya Rutuparna Pradhan an Odia civil servant is a unique one. Wrought with challenges and humiliation, it was her strong will to succeed that overcame all hurdles and she passed the Odisha Civil Service exam in 2010.
A commercial tax officer CTO in Paradip, Rutuparna is the first civil servant in the Odisha cadre to have come out with her transgender identity in the open.
Born as Ratikant Pradhan to a retired govt. officer in Katibageri village of Kandhamal district in Odisha, he first realised he does not identify with the male gender in class 8. He was bullied by his friends and family when he dressed as a female and had to face severe backlash from his parents. He continued to live and thus subdued his feelings for a while.
The landmark Supreme Court judgement of 2014 that recognised the transgender community as the third gender gave her the empowerment she needed to come out in the open and thus she boldly revealed her transgender identity in public in 2015.
She confesses that she had to face ostracization from her family and her father still thinks she has shamed the family but it is her elder sister and her mother who supported her from the beginning. “I used to dress up in my sister’s clothes and make up” she adds.
After a lot of challenges from her school time rebukes and abuses from friends to being sexually assaulted at college, she has come a long way to deserve a dignified life and her colleagues agree that she is a responsible officer who is good at her job. She hopes to travel abroad to convert into a female and marry a suitable person if she finds one.
“Odisha has more than 25000 TG community members but the government has not done enough” she says and hence to provide a better chance at life she has founded the organisation ‘Saakha’ which is for and run by transgenders. She has also initiated the ‘Aishwarya Rutuparna Pradhan Saakha Award’ to deserving poor students to help them in education. “The people who used to call me Sir now call me Madam and everything is normal now” she concludes.
A very inspirational true story.hats of to the patience and grit
It takes extraordinary guts to come out in the open.
Hope many others out there get inspired by you.
Stay blessed.