A transgender make-up artist breaks barriers in occupied Kashmir

 SRINAGAR: She became tortured via her own family as a teenager. She became bullied at college. She turned into never invited to own family gatherings. Taunts and expletives accompanied her on the streets.

But today, on the age of 20, she is impartial, assured and popular.

This is the tale of Manu Bebo, Kashmir’s first transgender makeup artist.

With her makeup tutorials on Instagram and YouTube, Manu is prevailing hearts everywhere in the internet. Each day her fan-base grows and along with it, support from society.

“Everyone appreciates my work. It makes me experience very satisfied and proud,” says Manu.

Manu become born to a center magnificence family in Srinagar and become raised as a boy. Her formative years was satisfied and she or he became joyful like different youngsters. She enjoyed gambling video games.

But as she turned 13, she began feeling unique.

“After my sister got married, I turned into feeling very lonely. I had many woman friends and I commenced realising that I too desired to be a woman. I commenced to marvel why God didn’t make me a female,” Manu informed Geo News.

She said with time she understood that she had the "soul" of a lady.

This thinking introduced backlash from own family, pals and household. She faced rejection and ridicule from society.

She recalled several times of being laughed at whilst stepping out of her residence.

“I changed into badly bullied in the course of my high school days and I felt mentally tortured to such an extent that I decided to stop my research. Later on, I got used to it, and sooner or later, I did not care.”

She said that even her circle of relatives become mocked because of her. But with time, they too stopped worrying about what others stated.

Manu could not preserve her research after the 12th grade.

Despite that, she became determined to make some thing of herself. She determined to begin her personal commercial enterprise.

This became uncommon because the transgender network in Kashmir basically make their residing with the aid of singing and dancing at weddings or through matchmaking. But Manu selected to face out and carve a niche for herself. That is when she decide to hone her make-up skills.

“Makeup is some thing that I've continually enjoyed doing and while one has an opportunity to begin a career in some thing this is exciting, then why no longer try this? I am completely self-taught and don’t have any expert training,” said Manu, who speaks and writes fluently in English.

Manu started her project 4 years lower back and along with her tough work and dedication, she earned a call for herself anywhere in Kashmir. She has thousands of followers on social media and the wide variety maintains growing.

“I believe in doing the work that earns you respect. Why must I dance at weddings and endure people's shameless, humiliating laughter?”

Manu is thankful to her mother, a trainer, for assisting her in the course of her adventure.

“I am satisfied with my existence. I don’t have any regrets. It doesn't count number what absolutely everyone thinks or how they react. I earn my personal money and my family is first-class with anything I do.”

She stated that guide for the minority transgender community in Kashmir is at the upward thrust and people are greater welcoming and respectful of them.

Manu had those words to proportion for her fellow transgenders:

“To all the transgenders out there, or maybe those folks who are forced to hide: be your self, as life is just too brief to provide weight to what people think. Whether you do precise or terrible, people will always have some thing poor to mention. So just do not be aware of such people, and upward thrust, like a chairman.”

Originally from Kashmir, Sana Altaf has been running as a journalist for over eleven years. She has a keen hobby in reporting human hobby stories.

She may be reached at sana2911@gmail.Com