After a four-year wait, Amazon Prime Video's much-loved web series Made In Heaven returned for a second season and brought with it several new lovely additions and surprises. One fresh entrant in the series is Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju, who is making her acting debut with the show. Before she impressed critics and fans with her acting prowess as Meher Chaudhry, Trinetra has been a familiar face on the Indian internet scene. Trinetra, who is a doctor by profession, rose to fame as one of India's first transgender content creators. On her Instagram page, Dr Trinetra documented her transition journey, while patiently educating her audience on gender issues and raising awareness.
Many firsts
Dr Trinetra has many firsts to her credit. As mentioned above, she is one of the first Indian content creators to document her transition on social media. Dr Trinetra went through her gender affirmation surgery at 21. As a medical graduate from Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, she is also Karnataka's first transgender doctor.
Dr Trinetra was also named on the prestigious Forbes India 30 Under 30 list. Speaking about her journey, she told Business Insider: “I was the first-born male child but I was never one of the boys. All the things that little boys are expected to do like sport and everything we associate traditionally with being masculine was not coming to me naturally at all. My father tried to masculinise me in as many ways as possible, which every Indian father would do. It took me many years to come to terms with the fact that I am not a boy and I don't want to adopt that identity.”
Here is a moving post that Dr Trinetra shared about her transition:
Awareness for all
On her Instagram handle [@trintrin], Dr Trinetra shares a plethora of information on issues pertaining to gender, sexuality, and the experiences of the LGBTQIA+ community. From explaining the importance of not calling trans people by their deadnames to the challenges that trans people face in the spheres of relationships, cultural celebrations and familial setups, Dr Trintera's Instagram handle has a lot to offer.
For instance, explaining why she chose her name to be Trinetra, she said, “Faith is such a task to navigate for trans people: one of very few things binding us to natal family culturally, but often the first source of familial rejection…Pujo was perhaps the one time during the academic year when, if not by teachers and classmates, I was slightly understood at home. For me too, then, Pujo feels like access to a childhood I was robbed of. That is why the name Trinetra, one of the 108 names of Ma Durga.”
Dr Trinetra also often speaks about the trials faced by trans doctors and healthcare professionals. Sharing images of herself in an operation theatre immersed in work, Dr Trinetra in one post shared how grateful she was for the opportunity to pursue her dream of being a doctor. “Not much left to say, but thank you. To this universe, to this life, to the operating room, to patients, to incredible teachers and mentors, to friends, to nurses (without whom the hospital truly falls apart), to lives saved and lives lost, to blood, sweat and tears. It's been a wild ride. Signing off, Dr. Trin.”
Acting beckons
As per a report in The Hindu, it was in December 2020, while she was interning at the hospital and her social media influence was on the rise, that the offer to audition for Made In Heaven came her way. Despite lacking formal acting experience or training, she decided to take the opportunity and give it a try. She also noted that even as she was auditioning, the team was open to her feedback on the representation of a trans person in the form of Meher in the film. Speaking of the series showrunner, Zoya Akhtar, Dr Trinetra said. “Zoya [Akhtar] in particular, was very open to feedback from the first time that we spoke. She was very open to saying, listen I don't have the lived experience for this so if something feels off, please tell me. And there were moments where she incorporated a lot of that feedback into the script as well. And that's so rare and so beautiful.”
Upon the release of the show, Dr Trinetra shared a post of her watching the series at home and said, “Still processing this madness, will say more words when I have them.”
Here are more glimpses of Dr Trinetra from the promotional event of the show.
Both seasons of Made In Heaven are available for streaming on Prime Video.
