Rocky, 32, can easily pass for a man. Except for the fact that he is rather short and has scant facial hair, there’s no way you can tell that he underwent a sex change operation four years ago. “As far back as I can remember, I never felt like a woman,” says Rocky. “I chucked feminine clothes and wore my hair short. I played cricket with the boys and also had a crush on a girl in school.” He continues: “After I grew up, I kept thinking, what’s the point in living life as I am? Then he read about a woman in Dhule in Maharashtra who had changed her sex. He went to the doctor who had operated on her to find out more. A commerce graduate from Mumbai University, Rocky did a lot of research on sex change operations and finally decided to take the leap. The process spanned three painful years of multiple surgeries after sessions with pyschiatrists.

When his family refused to support his decision, he sought support from friends. His then love interest, Madhavi, and a childhood friend were with him during the surgeries. “I wasn’t exactly ostracised by my family. They did let me be even when I lived like a man before the operation.”

“I felt on top of the world after the surgery,” says Rocky. He changed jobs and moved into his own apartment. Currently he works for a research firm that collects customer data for companies. His neighbours do not know his history. Neither do his new colleagues.

“I moved out to save embarrassment to my family and also because I wanted to move away from the neighbourhood where I grew up as a girl and people still know me by my original name (Puja),” he explains. Today, his family too has come around after the initial disagreement. So weekends now mean spending time with family, playing with his niece and the weekly beer session with his brother on Sunday.

“There’s a lot of ignorance about sex change operations and what comes with it,” he says. But he tries to do his bit by being there for transsexuals who want to cross over. Eventually, he wants to get married and settle down. Not that his life is bereft of romance. “A girl at work did express her interest in me a few months back,” he discloses, blushing. “It’s perhaps not been the most perfect transformation that it could have been,” he acknowledges. “But I’m thankful to be in a place I belong. And I’m happy.”