Shakshi Harendran cannot easily forget the first time she went on stage. She sang ‘Ooh La La La’ (Minsara Kanavu) in front of celebrity judges — Santhosh Narayanan, Ananthu and Shaktisree Goplan — and the three were shocked.

That was because she was singing both the male and female parts in the number.

“Everyone was shocked,” says the transgender contestant in Colors Tamil’s Singing Stars, a programme in which she sings along with her friend Stanley. “My USP is not just that about singing in male and female voices — it is also trying to switch between various singers. Think about it as a mimicry way of singing.”

Shakshi is one of the contestants in the show, but her unique talent has got the attention of many. It was something she discovered when she was 14. “I grew up in Singapore, and have always been singing in a girl’s voice. I realised I could even sing like a man when I participated in a music show to get over my stage fear,” she recalls.

It was a turning point in her life. The other big thing to happen to her was recording an amateur Tamil version of a song in Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. “I thought: ‘Why not do a Tamil version of a Hindi song?’” she says, “I wrote some Tamil lyrics for a song, and recorded it. I remember dreading what Bhansali sir would think if he heard it!”

Thankfully, Sanjay Leela Bhansali did not hear it. But Stanley Vincent, another popular singer who sings in both male and female voices, did hear it, and that resulted in him reaching out to Shakshi. “I was travelling in the train when I got a Facebook message from Stanley. I was taken aback, because I was his fan and he was messaging me!”

That message would result in a musical collaboration. Their first song was ‘Kandaangi’ (Jilla, in 2014), which got the attention of netizens all over the globe. “It was overwhelmingly positive,” she recalls. It was followed by ‘Unna Ippo Paakkanum’ — when the term ‘Stari’ was born for this duo — ‘Adiye Enna Ragam’, ‘Naane Varuven’ and the Unnikrishnan mash-up, all of which did well online. Post a two-year gap, the duo has now teamed up again for the Colors TV show.

Back in Singapore, Shakshi works as a make-up artiste and is involved with the media as well, but she feels at home in Chennai. “This city is very different from what I’m used to in Singapore. It provides me with a lot of opportunities in the arts and music space.”

It’s the city that promoted her singing talent (“I hope to train under a classical teacher soon”) and it’s also the city that will see her realising her dream... of becoming an actress.

“My first performance was in a play when I was just five, back in Singapore,” she says.

She did a couple of short films post that, but today, she is stepping into Kollywood as well — she has signed her début Tamil feature, titled Pagaivanukku Arulvai. “It’s the second film of director Anis, who made Thirumanam Ennum Nikkah. I play the role of a transgender and am the second lead in the film.”

Shakshi hopes that the film world will start portraying transgenders in a positive light. “Tamil cinema should stop portraying transgenders as a sex label and show them in other professions as well. Society is slowly changing its outlook on transgenders, and that is surely a healthy sign.”