Niyar Saikia ( as, নিয়ৰ শইকিয়া; born 9 November 1999) is an Indian actress. She played Lakshmi in Jeffrey D. Brown's film ''

Sold Sold may refer to: * ''Sold'' (Boy George album), 1987 * ''Sold'' (Died Pretty album), 1996 * ''Sold'' (TV series), a British comedy drama television series * ''Sold'' (McCormick novel), a 2006 novel by Patricia McCormick and Illustrated by Br ...

''.

Early life

Saikia was born in

Guwahati Guwahati (, ; formerly rendered Gauhati, ) is the biggest city of the Indian state of Assam and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the ...

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

, as the daughter of musicians Probin Saikia and Roshmi Rekha Saikia. She is a student of folk dances and songs of Assam at the Panchasur Institute and at the Seagull theatre. Saikia is training under Padmashree Awardee and Nrityacharya, Shri Jatin Goswami for Sattriya.

Career

Saikia started acting at age 5. Her first (unreleased) film was ''Butterfly Chase'', directed by

Jahnu Baruah Jahnu Barua (born 1952) is an Indian film director. He has written and directed a number of Assamese and Hindi films. Some of his notable films are ''Halodhia Choraye Baodhan Khai'' (1987), '' Firingoti'' (1992), ''Xagoroloi Bohu Door'' (1995), ...

. Niyar started performing in theatre and soaps and received a Best Actress award in the All India Multi-Lingual Children Play ad Dance competition-Cuttack (Orissa), portraying a girl named Dhunumoina. Saikia acted in Assamese and

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

films before she was cast in ''Sold'' in 2014. The film is directed by

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

-winning director Jeffrey D. Brown and based on Patricia McCormick's novel

. She was selected for the role after casting director Tess Joseph auditioned more than a thousand girls in Nepal and India. Saikia played the role of a trafficked

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

ese child, Lakshmi, who is sold off to a brothel in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

Filmography

*''

'', as Lakshmi *''Aai Kot Nai'' *''Main Ganga'' *''Butterfly Chase'' *''Ami Axomiya'' *''Joymoti''

References

External links

* Living people Actresses from Guwahati 1999 births Indian child actresses 21st-century Indian actresses Indian female dancers Dancers from Assam {{India-actor-stub