Rani KoHEnur says her father taught her, 'A life of dignity is your birthright' - Exclusive

In a world that enjoys giving labels, Sushant Divgikar aka Rani KoHEnur refused to be reduced to any tag. As a believer, an artist, and a person, Rani KoHEnur was never raised with the ideology that respect is a privilege. “I have always been brought up with the idea that a life of dignity is your birthright,” she shared during her appearance on TOI Women.

“My father taught me this. So I did not imagine or think that there was anything extra that they were doing by giving me respect,” she added.

Why Rani KoHEnur feels she is among the lucky ones

“You know, we have seen many times on screen or in films the characters of my community, or the writers and directors who write the characters from the LGBT community. So, on-screen, we have seen that a lot of the characters were not respected. They were made fun of. But now times have changed,” she said before adding, “When we were growing up, my parents never differentiated between my brother and me. I was lucky in a way that I had such wonderful parents, a wonderful upbringing, and my privilege.”

“When I was growing up, it was not very nice to look at characters on screen, but my parents were wonderful, and I will always give them credit for that. I was a sports person. I was the sports captain of my school. I think that's where I developed my faith and my belief system, my value system. A lot of people have a problem with that. When you want to follow your faith, and you want to pray to the God that you want to pray to, people have issues. So I have realized that if people have issues, you just pass them a tissue and continue doing what you do. That's all. A queen has to be a queen, 24x7.”

Being privileged doesn’t mean a trouble-free life

In our conversation, she proudly admitted being privileged and explained why she believes so. She said that by saying that she comes from a privileged background, it doesn’t take away the struggles she faced. However, it is her journey, was her burden to bear, and she doesn’t like anyone's interference.

“As a transgender person, as soon as you step out of your house, you want to be judged. But I think that now we have understood that there is a certain level of indifference that we have to build and say that we have many more important things to do rather than think about what people think of us. I am a productive member of society. I'm educated. I contribute to the social fabric and the cultural fabric of my nation, and I'm very proud of that. I represent my country not just once or twice. I've represented it multiple times in the past, and I will keep doing it,” she said.

The artist further added, “So this is to all the people who look at a transgender person and think this is a transgender, not a man or a woman. This is a hijra, a trans, a kinner. She speaks English so well. So you get used to this. I think it should be normalized. It's very normal that we also have families. We also have careers, and we also pay taxes. We don't get any rebate for showing our transgender ID. We pay the same taxes, maybe more, because we work very hard and earn. And we live well.”

Highlighting how life isn’t fair to anyone irrespective of caste, creed, gender, or sexuality, she shared, “You shed one tear, and people will be like, ‘Oh my God, poor thing.’ ‘She must have gone through so much.’ Yeah, but so have you. Life is not kind to anyone, and life is also going to throw all sorts of challenges. But also, there are happy moments. I take even that small ray of light and illuminate it even more. The magnanimity of it increases only because I reflect on it more.”

It's like when you put a ray of sun, and then you put a mirror on it; it reflects so much more and helps so many more people. I feel that, according to me, it's a personal opinion. If you sit at home and sing a bhajan or do anything, people will still have problems. But it doesn't mean that I'll stop,” she expressed.

Her every word, woven with confidence and resilience, created a powerful, inspiring voice that can brighten anyone's day in no time.