At one o’clock at Kitty Su, an LGBTQIA+ friendly nightclub on the 28th floor of the luxury Lalit Hotel in Delhi, the night was animated. Commemorating the fourth anniversary of decriminalisation of Section 377 of the IPC, the club was hosting a queer bash and a drag show. The disco lights in the otherwise dimly lit club danced in a frenzy, and so did the partying queer folk on the floor. Everything in the hall—hips, arms, feet, bodies, lights, and music—danced to a universal rhythm that bounced and oscillated unabashedly like subatomic particles running berserk in every possible direction, creating a miasma of colours and bodies. Drag shows are celebratory congregations, often hosted by nightclubs. Although its main purpose is entertainment, it is also used as self-expression and a celebration of LGBTQIA+ pride. A typical drag show includes, a drag queen with elaborate attire, hair and makeup, lip-syncing or dancing to pop numbers.
The Politics Of Two Attires And Flamboyant Drag Queens
In India, drag culture is slowly becoming a medium to express personal politics
Although the flamboyantly dressed queer crowd at Kitty Su looked committed to merrymaking, they were eagerly waiting for the queens, and especially the performance of Lush Monsoon. When she appeared, Monsoon wore glittering makeup, a kimono-like dress, a big shimada-like wig, a pair of fancy eyeglasses, and carried a Japanese mai-ougi hand-fan. As Monsoon entered, her kimono sleeves fluttered, and a slew of camerapersons with their heavy equipment followed her trail, all of them jostling through the crowd. Teya, a drag queen, donning a silver-blonde wig, who had already taken the stage, made an announcement requesting the guests to assemble. The crowd obliged. “It’s a commemoration of our freedom, my friends,” she spoke into the microphone with gusto, as the crowd roared in excitement. “Four years ago, the fangs of Section 377 were clawed out! This night is for the celebration folks, let’s dance to death!”
The lights on the floor flashed as the DJ took over, playing Beyonce’s Freedom. Drag queen Betta Naan Stop was on the stage, performing to the number. “Freedom, cut me loose, singing… freedom, freedom… where are you?” Betta lip-synced to Beyonce, swaying her hips slyly like a serpent. The bewitched crowd danced along.
Ayushmaan aka Lush Monsoon is a human rights lawyer by day and drag queen by night. “I can never, experience and express my femininity as freely as I do on stage,” says Monsoon. Their feeling of freedom is “closely attached” to drag.
Although drag as an art form is not restricted to gender and sexuality, and straight artists also cross dress, it hones an element of performance wherein the artists express the layers of the identities they relate to. As such, drag has been integral to the LGBTQIA+ community. “Drag is closely linked to queerness, because it’s about expressing something the society doesn’t conform to or see as a taboo,” says Monsoon.
Monsoon believes India’s modern drag scene is somewhat inspired by the America’s ballroom culture of the late 1980s—an African-American and Latino underground LGBTQIA+ subculture that originated in New York, wherein drag queens organised their own events to resist the racism experienced in existing and established landscapes.
For Monsoon, drag is a political art form. Along with the peripheral politics of the surroundings or structures, drag makes references to personal politics as well. For instance, many of the drag queens in India take part in LGBTQIA+ activism and have been raising their voices against the laws that have been regressive for the community. Moreover, on the personal front, drag artists’ will and choice to crossdress, perform and express their identities freely signifies an action, wherein tenets of personal politics come into play.
In India, being visibly queer—as in the case of drag artistes—comes at a huge cost. Donning the apparel to express ones femine side, says Monsoon, is looked down upon. Although the drag artists’ battle for asserting their identity seems like an arduous task, drag nights in clubs give them hope. “These are spaces of joy and hope, where we weave a community,” says Monsoon about places that host drag nights in the Capital.
Although drag offers a safe space to queers, the places where the shows are hosted are accessible to groups that have social and financial privilege. “In developing countries like India,” a gender studies researcher says, “where the gap between the haves and have-nots is sickening, such practices only cater to groups who are basically elites.”
Nevertheless, the elements of drag are not new to India. Indian princely courts during medieval times had drag performers, and the culture also flourished in kothis. For decades, folk art forms like jatra and lavani have always had men performing as women. Traditional performance art forms such as the Lok Rang Noor from rural Punjab, have survived for many generations with extraordinary resilience. Kaniyan Koothu in Tamil Nadu and Launda Naach in Bihar are two examples of such art forms that are still in vogue. Cross-dressing, as much as the definition of drag demands, was a significant component of Indian culture before it fell victim to stigmas and systematic scorn, especially as a result of colonialism, Victorian morality and the regressive regulations that accompanied them.
“Drag has always been integral to our history,” says Keshav Suri, the founder of Kitty Su. “However, colonial guilt marginalised the queer community and we shunned our own culture,” he adds. “Drag is deeply rooted into the stratas of the diverse Indian culture,” says internationally renowned drag queen Sushant Divgikar. “Our folk dances have men performing as women. The courts of emperors used to have royal eunuchs,” says Divgikar, who goes by the name RANI Ko-HE-Nur, adds. “The colonial mentality does not want to talk about our rich culture,” he adds.
Other drag artistes have taken inspiration from the West. Nitish Anand aka Shabnam was inspired by American teen sitcom Hannah Montana, in which a teenage girl played by Miley Cyrus, lives a double life—pop star Hannah Montana by night, student Miley Stewart by day. “I felt if Hannah can do it, why can’t I?” Another performance that inspires Anand is the character of Edna Turnblad played by John Travolta in Hairspray. “The feminine characters played by cisgender males, like Travolta in Hairspray, opened up new vistas for me,” recalls Anand, adding, “I had an epiphany that I can bend identities and appearances and express myself freely.”
In Indian cinema and television too, references to drag performances have time and again appeared. Whether it be Govinda’s Aunty No. 1, Kamal Hassan’s Chachi 420 or Sunil Grover’s comic character Guthi, they are replete with references to drag. Says Anand, “We need to understand that such characters were often portrayed to invite ridicule or evoke laughter. We need to destigmatise drag and shun the self-deprecating humour that is employed to titillate the viewers.”
“Drag is not only an art form or medium of self-expression. It’s a tool through which we can educate the community, fight taboos and create a fabric that preaches freedom,” says Anand.
At Kitty Su, the party was getting merrier. Queens put up scintillating performances, setting the stage for Monsoon. The camera crew was trying to figure out a vantage point in the hall full of people who were dancing, drinking, darting and occasionally making out. With her glittering eyelids, long and curled eyelashes and tantalising geisha-look, Monsoon performed a Bollywood number, Pallo Latke. Monsoon’s moves seemed to set everything on fire—the disco lights, the dancing crowd, lovers kissing in the dark, the smiling bouncers and the housekeeping staff mopping up pieces of shattered glass from the floor. As the night waned, the dancing became more berserk and the kisses more passionate, with the crowd refusing to stop.
(This appeared in the print edition as "The Politics Of Two Attires")