Benjamin Daimary
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YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS
As in 2021
Mohua Das, March 28, 2021: The Times of India
The voice on the other end is rapturous. Not without reason. Benjamin Daimary’s afternoon nap had been just interrupted by a phone call telling him that his role in the Assamese film Jonaki Porua (Fireflies) had won him the jury’s special mention at this year’s National Awards for acting. “I was like, ‘What! Me? Why me?’ when Prakash-da (Prakash Deka, director of Jonaki Porua) called. So I googled to confirm,” he says, all dressed up for his interview in a black sheer shirt with shimmering silver flowers. It seems fitting for the 20-year-old, whose breakout performance as Jahnu on a journey to being Jahnavi, a transwoman, saw this 20-year-old from Goreswar — a little village in the Baksa district of Assam — thrust into the spotlight this awards season.
Films on the LGBT community or by queer filmmakers at the National Awards aren’t new though still not very many. In 2001, Apurva Asrani became the first openly gay film writer-editor to take home the award for best editing for Snip; Onir’s I Am won best Hindi film in 2012 and gay rights activist Sridhar Rangayan’s documentary Breaking Free won best editing in 2017. Over the years winning films like Tamanna (1998) Naanu Avanalla...Avalu (2015) and Nagarkirtan (2018) have featured transgender protagonists, played by straight persons.
However, in the long history of the National Awards, the nod for Daimary is historic. He is the first openly gay person to win the coveted award as actor.
There’s been a deluge of congratulatory messages. “Hansal Mehta tweeted about me and I’m like wow!” he gushes. It’s a bit ironic too, given that Daimary has been camping in Mumbai for the past two weeks, flitting between audition rooms and making casting call submissions, hoping to get a foot in the door. Will the award open the right doors for him? Daimary knows it isn’t going to be a cakewalk. While his film that’s been sweeping international film festivals is yet to find a commercial release, the city of dreams has offered him little comfort, with a resident of the Malad housing society where he’s been living calling him a “chhakka” out of the blue. “She said I looked ‘unnatural’. I didn’t want trouble so I dyed my newly coloured white hair back to black… But don’t think I want to be invisible,” he is quick to assert.
Daimary, who works as a make-up artist and fashion choreographer in Guwahati stumbled into acting. “I was 14, my sister was attending an acting workshop in my village and I’d gone to give her lunch. I saw boys and girls of my age there having fun so I decided to join.” His first brush with acting did not end on a promising note. “I was a disaster! I was asked to react to a snake and I went ‘oh, snake’ with a straightface. So the only roles I’d get to play were a shaking tree or a dancing river,” he laughs. “Since I believed that I was a terrible actor, I got into makeup, costumes and backstage work,” says Daimary, even as he continued to cut his teeth in acting at street plays or in front of the mirror until the makers of ‘Jonaki Porua’ met their eventual star. “Prakash-da says he chose me because he liked my subdued expressions. It helped dispel my belief that you have to be loud and animated to be a good actor.”
In a film peppered with complex emotional moments, the most wrenching of them are also the most quiet, and it’s mostly because of Daimary. Conveying Jahnu’s joy, sadness and longing without overwhelming the film’s delicate tone is perhaps what made his performance riveting.
Though Daimary who identifies as a gay man grew up with “very supportive” parents, there’s a lot of himself in the film, sometimes to a painful degree, he admits. “Jahnu and Benjamin are very different. Ostracised by family and neighbours, Jahnu is shy, closeted, reflective and mature. I’m happy, crazy, free and had it easy,” stresses Daimary. But being gender-variant in a small, conservative village in rural Assam can still be isolating, he points out.
Many of the hostilities that Jahnavi — a trans woman from a remote village by the banks of the Brahmaputra faces in the film — are insults that Daimary says he’s had thrown at him. “I experienced it the first time when I was 11. My teacher called me ‘ei (this) lady’. Today people in Assam are more aware but acceptance is still very low. Most believe doctors can cure homosexuality and it’s heartbreaking to see so many queer folks faking their lives even now.”
Daimary doesn’t see himself as an activist but he understands what this win means for his community — not just LGBT folks but also fellow Assamese — who feel like they don’t belong. “There are lots of people I know who want to act in TV or movies but don’t get a chance because they’re queer or have a northeastern face with small eyes and round nose. I hope the mindset of the entertainment industry changes,” he says.
“Personally, I want to play not just trans or gay roles but straight roles too,” he says, dismissing the debate about cisgender actors playing transgender roles. “Acting is about pretending. Equality is when an actor who fits a role best gets to play it irrespective of their gender identity.”
