REDEFINING BEAUTY

In February, 32-year-old Anjali Lama became the first transgender model in India to walk the ramp, strutting down the catwalk during Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai. “When you’re a young girl, you look into the mirror sometimes and wonder whether you could be a model. I never had those moments, but I did make it to the ramp,” she says, laughing.

Lama was born Nabin Waiba. Growing up in a small town in Nepal with six siblings, she was always volunteering to play the bride during dress-up games and trying to learn how to drape a sari just right.

When she was 18, she moved to Kathmandu for college. It was here that she came in contact with the Blue Diamond Society, an LGBT community group. “After all the confusion I had felt about my sexuality and gender, I was finally able to define my identity, and it was like rebirth for me,” she says. In 2005, she transitioned, and in 2009 a Nepalese magazine called Voice of Women thought she would make for an interesting cover. Called in for a photo-shoot, she realised that she loved being in front of the camera. And she seemed to have an instinct for fashion. “When you start feeling beautiful, it gives you a different kind of confidence,” Lama says. “Facing the camera for the first time, I thought, maybe this is what I was meant to do.”

Soon, people around the world were talking about Nepal’s first transgender model. But getting work would not be easy. “I went to audition shoots and everything would look so promising, but I would never get called back,” she says. Lama was rejected for Nepal Fashion Week thrice and had tried out for the Lakme Fashion Week twice before, but never made it to the final list. “Being a woman gave me the strength I needed to fight these odds as well,” she says. Along the way, she says, she learnt that beauty really is about being comfortable in your skin.