Living Smile Vidya

A writer, theater actress and film director, Living Smile Vidya, also called Smiley, is an inspirational woman. She is also a transgender activist and blogger. She received the British Council-Charles Wallace India Trust fellowship to study theater in the United Kingdom. She was born as a boy but soon realized her orientation. She has always been in love with theater acting like a child and would always prefer theater over linguistics. After finishing her post-graduation, she went to Pune to get herself castrated and stayed there for a bit. On returning home, she found a mainstream job with a rural bank and realized that she was the first of her kind - a transwoman - to work in a mainstream job profile.

Although she was happy with the job, she never got over her love for theater. However, not everyone in the theater world could handle a transwoman as an actress. She later launched a book called "I am (Sarvanam) Vidya" which was her autobiography as a transwoman. It became an instant success and filmmakers took notice of her. She first worked with Siva Kumar, but the film didn’t go as planned. She later worked with Mr. Mysskin, with whom she learned a lot. Smiley is actively involved in politics and dreams to start her trans-theatre group some day. She has her blog where she writes things about films, feminism, theater and also her poems.