Post News Network
Paradip, Dec 17: It was a dream come true for Ratikanta Pradhan alias Aishwarya Rutuparna Pradhan, a transgender, as her gender asymmetry failed to come her way to become an Orissa Finance Service (OFS) officer.
Rutuparna, after clearing the OFS examination in 2010, is now posted as a Commercial Tax Officer (CTO) in Paradip. Her perseverance and sincerity helped her get the better of her prevailing social system.
She can be found sitting in her chamber dressed in a salwar-kameej, shiny nails, bangles on her hands, nose ring, earrings, long hairs complete a woman’s shoes. Ratikanta changed her name to Rutuparna after becoming a transgender. In office, she is addressed by her colleagues as both ‘Madam and Pradhan Babu’ while people visiting the office on work address her as ‘Madam’.
Rutuparna was born as the second child of retired government servant Balila Pradhan of Katibageri village under G Udayagiri police limits in Kandhmal district November 12, 1983. Initially, she was not a girl but a boy till Class-X. However, as she advanced in age she discovered the woman in herself and started behaving like a girl.
She was rebuked by her father, elder brother and younger sister for behaving like a woman. But that failed to deter her in realising her feminity. Her classmates and friends started calling her by various names. The more people started disapproving her ways the more she got motivated to become a woman.
However, all that stopped after she cleared OFS examination in 2010. The same year she also got an appointment in a private bank at Puri but chose to join as an OFS officer. She claimed to be discharging her duty with all sincerity and dedication while remaining on medication for over a year to fully acquire the body of a woman.
She is ready to marry if she finds a suitable boy. While doctors say she will not be able to achieve motherhood, she is willing to go to the extent of having a child through alternative methods.
Apart from discharging her duty as a responsible officer she devotes her time to the task of uplifting the transgender community through her voluntary outfit ‘Sakha’ in Bhubaneswar of which she is one of the founder members.
She claims people even call her by names whenever she visits the market with her transgender friend with whom she is living. She requests people to behave properly with the transgender as they have a right to live in society like others.
