Pratik Pant underwent a sex reassignment surgery in Thailand in 2012 to become a girl. She is now Caitlyn. Her story had made a lot of headlines back then, mostly because she is the child of renowned actor Santosh Pant.
The ‘Hijo Aaja Ka Kura’ actor and his family have always been very supportive to Caitlyn, the youngest child in the family. And her decision of undergoing the surgery, too, was well received by the family.
Pant talked about his daughter in a candid interview with Baahrakhari recently. “Around 20 years ago, I did a character of a transsexual person in a film called Koseli”, he recalls. Director Tulsi Ghimire had offered him the role that he couldn’t refuse as he always wanted to do different kinds of characters. “I did some research about the lifestyle of the LGBT community, and Tulsi ji too gave me some details; and played the character of a transsexual person for the very first time. That’s when I came to know about the LGBT community in detail for the first time.”
“When she (Caitlyn) started to know that she is transsexual, she started talking about it with her mother”, he further said. “She once talked to me about it and I told her that I will send her to the US. I asked her to finish her studies first and then become what she wants to. But she told me that it will be too late by then. She said her hormones were changing, it would be more convenient for her to become what she wants to become, or it will be difficult later. She wanted to become a beautiful girl.”
“She has grown really beautiful now and she also is a model in the States”, the proud father further continued. “She wished for something, and I fulfilled it for her.”
He also has a message for the society; he says, “I want my voice to reach those who don’t understand this. A man becomes a woman, or a woman becomes a man when they feel it in their soul. Everybody should understand this. It’s not love when you just feed you children eggs and meat, you need to understand their feelings. That’s love.”
