At the age of 16, Jaanu decided to choose the path of her dreams. She shifted to Bangalore with the 4,000 rupees given by her elder sister.
Jaanu, a resident of Raichur, Karnataka, has become the country’s first transgender ventriloquist artist. She was honored for this achievement in the Influencer Book of World Records-2025 program organized at RIC, Jaipur.
Journey from struggle to success
Jaanu was born as Abdul Qaddus in a Muslim family. Since childhood, she loved to do makeup, wear saree and admire herself in the mirror. But her family, especially her father, used to be angry with her gestures and way of speaking. Father wanted him to become an electrician, but girlish feelings were growing in Jaanu’s mind.
At the age of 16, Jaanu decided to choose the path of her dreams. She shifted to Bangalore with the 4,000 rupees given by her elder sister. There she started working as a professional mehndi artist and spent about 9 lakh rupees from her earnings to get gender reassignment surgery done.
The story of becoming Jaanu from Abdul
Jaanu told Dainik Bhaskar, “Things of religion, caste and community always suffocated me. That is why I changed my name to ‘Jaanu’. This name is the identity of love and equality, which is above every gender and community.”
Jaanu had to face many difficulties in the initial days after changing her gender. Many times she had to ask for money from people wearing suit-salwar. Despite the taunts of the society and being called a transgender, she did not give up.
Steps towards Ventriloquism
Jaanu was always interested in painting, drawing, Warli art, hairstyling and modelling. One day she saw an artist performing with a puppet on TV and got inspired to learn Ventriloquism. Ventriloquists are those artists who are adept in the art of producing sounds without moving their lips. Such artists often perform on stage with a puppet. There are very few artists of this art in India, especially both men and women. Janu learned this art by doing an online course from Kolkata. She also learned Kannada, Hindi and English, so that she could connect better with the audience during the performance.
New identity, new dream
Jaanu is currently a BA first year student and is presenting her puppet shows across the country. She has proved that with courage, hard work and passion, anyone can create their own identity.
Courtesy: Hindi News