Aashiesh Sharrma discusses reinventing himself for Khejdi role

Actor Aashiesh Sharrma, known for shows including Siya Ke Ram and Chandragupta Maurya, now plays a transgender character in the film Khejdi, which has reached Indian theatres after screening at international festivals since 2018, New Indian Express reported. Sharrma won the Best Actor award at the New York City South Asian Film Festival in 2019 for the role, among other honours. He said his father first gave him the short story the film is based on, that it stayed with him afterward, and that he and his wife, Archana Taide, chose it as their debut feature project because it read like an intimate, subjective account rather than an outside view of its subject. Sharrma said he lost nearly 30 kilograms for the part and wrote the character himself, describing having to unlearn and remould himself from the ground up since he had no lived experience to draw on, building on lessons he credits to his earlier mythological and historical roles.