BENGALURU: Her puppet sings, cracks jokes, and even whispers back late at night, easing her deepest pain. For Jaanu, a 25-year-old transwoman ventriloquist in the city, her art is the ticket she hopes will one day mend ties with her family in Raichur. Jaanu won scores of accolades for her art, yet, despite her achievements, her family in Raichur refuses to accept her.Born Abdul Kudus, she transitioned in 2021 after years of ridicule for being effeminate as a boy. “I liked dressing up and dancing at home, but was taken to dargahs and temples to get the ‘demon’ out of me. My ‘condition’ was blamed for my sister’s miscarriages, my father’s heart condition, and now my brother not finding a girl to marry,” she says. When a chance to perform in Raichur came up in Dec 2024, she simply passed it up.“Even today they call me ‘jogamma ai’ — a demeaning way to address transwomen. My mother says I have tainted their name. My father, who suffered two heart attacks, still calls on Ramzan and Eid to check on me. He is nervous, but he calls. He is my life,” Jaanu says.She left her hometown in 2016, hoping Bengaluru would give her freedom to be herself. But things were not easy. She survived by applying mehendi at weddings, holding small art classes, and dancing at festivals, but her bigger dream of acting was stifled. “I am a theatre artist. But I used to be typecast into transgender roles alone. I realised I did not want to be confined to that. Even if I got a house cleaner’s role, I would have been happy,” she says.It was television that opened her another path. “I saw ventriloquists on English and Hindi channels. I thought the voices were recorded separately. A friend explained the art. I also saw Karnataka’s Indushree Ravindra performing, and it fascinated me. I decided to learn it online,” she recalls.Jaanu began with YouTube tutorials, then signed up for online classes from Magic World in Kolkata, where she was asked to practise alphabets with her mouth closed, build her own puppet, and was sent a monkey doll to start with. “Keep in mind this has a life. Give it a different voice than your own, my teacher told me. I carried it everywhere — streets, parks, malls. But at night, in absolute silence, the puppet would hear me and respond to my pain,” she says.She tried crowdfunding for better puppets but failed. Eventually, she borrowed money from friends and imported a Rs 25,000 doll from the US. From nervously lasting just a minute at her first birthday party show in 2023, Jaanu has since built a troupe of characters — a lady, a boy, a grandpa — won an award in Jaipur, and now performs across Karnataka. “Puppetry gave me the respect that no other profession did. People shook my hand, appreciated my skill. I knew this was the only way to go back home, wash off my ‘tainted’ image, and have my mother ask me how I am doing instead of reminding me that my family has to keep its head low,” she says.Jaanu’s life is delicately balanced. She is pursuing a degree at Vijayanagara Government College — the first transgender student admitted under her chosen identity — while earning from puppet shows, odd gigs, and dances, even as she pays for ongoing hormone therapy, laser treatments, and hospital check-ups. But her visibility has had unintended consequences. “People from Raichur ask why I continue the way I do. They say more boys are now coming forward for surgery after hearing my story. I don’t know how to respond to that,” she admits.
