When you meet Nayana the Corporate Professional, she comes across like any other urban person in Bengaluru but meeting her was intriguing interaction filled with curiosity in the beginning & ending with admiration.
Born & brought up in Udupi where her father Rama Sherigara (who passed away few years back) & Mother Susheela used to run a petty shop managing with their meagre income & taking care of all their five children including Nayana who is the eldest.
Her father could never accept while growing up,Nayana who was born as a male enjoyed wearing sarees & salwar kameez,would play with Girls & exhibited all feminine traits.Post her Xth Grade,Nayana was sent to KGF for a foreman training with the assumption by sending her away from conservative Udipi,they are perhaps getting rid of her & also ‘reforming’ her in the process.Staying in the hostel was daunting experience & Nayana was constantly ridiculed by the other boys.
This constant bullying & ragging made her run away from KGF & she started working as a receptionist at the young age of 17 in a Lodge in Bengaluru .Determined to complete her education she started to work in the Night shift in the Lodge & studying daytime & completed her II PUC in Arts. Bangalore in 1990s was on the threshold of all possible changes & she was embraced by the city which she now calls her home.
The desire to change her gender made her shift base to Pune where for 3 years she was part of the Hijra community & worked as sex worker. The painful process of gender being reassigned also happened & she transformed from a Man to a Woman.
But a life filled with begging was something she had not resigned her fate for & she enrolled for a computer skills & multimedia course.
Rejection followed in every possible company (20+ rejections in a span of 3 months) where D&I (Diversity & Inclusion) was more on theory but nobody actually followed them at all.Nayana shifted base back to Bengaluru & to make ends meet started even doing small roles as ‘extra’ in movies having worked with Jayaprada & even the Late superstar Puneet Rajkumar.
In 2009,Sangam a Human Rights NGO specific for the transgender community gave her job as a Manager which was the turning point in her career.2014,she joined Thought Works an IT Company which welcomed her for her skills & not her orientation,this opened a great horizon for her & she continues to work in their Marketing Team till today.She has been featured in the Coffee Table Book based on 75 Transgenders & their success stories which is getting released on 23 April 2022 by Akshay Kumar.
Being a champion of D&I, she has hosted more than 20+ sessions in various forums for gender sensitisation across India.Currently she is Single & enjoys gardening, drawing & travelling(more than 15+ Cities she has travelled).She has a bitter-sweet equation with her brothers & sisters, but its her mother(who is in her later 70s now in Udipi) who has always been a constant support & speaks to her daily.
Nayana has walked the ramp in 2018 for a fashion brand ATDC Apparels in Bengaluru.Nayana has no regrets & says she is happy with what God has given her & signs off with her favorite song –Jeena Yahan Marna Yahan…