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I remember watching a Tamil movie titled Padayappa at the age of 5. Dubbed into Narasimha in Telegu, the south Indian film was Rajinikanth blockbuster.
Unlike most, however, Rajini is not my inspiration.
What fascinated me the most in the movie was a character called ‘Neelambari’ which was played by Ramya Krishnan. In a sequence, upon being rejected by the hero, she screams loudly and dances vehemently. That was the very first time I saw someone dancing and I thought that if I wanted to be taken seriously, I needed to scream out loud and dance. It started when my mom didn’t give me my favourite chocolate. I started to dance in range to ensure that I got one. Now, I am 28 years old and still, this trick works!!
But to address the anger of marginalisation!
Born and bought up in West Bengal, I was always different from the other kids. When I was 6, seeing my unshakable interest in dance, my parents encouraged me and left no stone unturned to equip me with the art of Bharatnatyam. As I grew the use of dance, dance for me grew from Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Contemporary to Butoh – a Japanese art form which talks about deaths and diseases. I was 14 when I did my first drag performance in traditional Kuchipudi format. Unlike what is usually assumed, my mother was the one who helped me put on my makeup and my Dad clicked pictures of my performance.
Even though this was my initiation into the idea of dressing up, it took me a little time to come back and embrace it.
I restarted drag in 2014, in the city of Hyderabad with only an intent to kick start the drag scene. Hyderabad had never had drag queens or performers before my inner sense of responsibility made me come back to drag. My first performance at a local café, however, left me even more disillusioned. I wanted to quit this time since I couldn’t resonate with the aesthetics of beauty standards and glamour of the traditional drag which we, as a country, have adopted from the West. The dissonance was more apparent because I had always looked up to traditional artists like Bal Gandharva and Chapal Bahadur as my inspiration. These aesthetics weren’t suitable for the changing identity of my body as I kept exploring gender fluidity.
This was the time when I looked into the idea of Intersectionality of classical dance, music with anti-artforms like Butoh, and performance art and learned about the style of Tranimal Drag – an avant-garde postmodern drag-style created by Augustin Young, Speaky Blonde, Fade Da Prey and performed by the likes of Daniel Lismore. Tranimal Drag gave me the strength to take up drag non-artificially. Tranimal kicks the idea of glamour and delusioned gender and re-establishes the scope of privilege for performing drag. Using available objects and trash material, I started creating distorted, traumatised, amalgamated and vulcanised imageries and aesthetics. The performance intended to create the ideas of disgust, anti-beauty, and dis-formed identity. I named my drag ‘Suffocated Art Specimen’ – a sample of art which is born due to the suffocation of self.
With time, I started exploring the concept of anti-beauty. My themes often mix with the ideas of gender fluidity, sexual freedom, anti-art, and unspoken images of desire. While working on these imageries through multiple mediums such as dance, performance art, photo performances and image series, I found a way to use my art to the scope of activism and demystification of taboos. During the COVID quarantine, I indeed honed my performance photography skills as I explored a new genre of visual art with the help of my photographer friend, Manab Das.
In our recent work, we personified the idea of ‘Enemies of Mind’ where I used drag as a medium to talk about lust, anger, temptation, greed, ego, and jealousy. Captured by Manab, in the series, we tried to embrace the idea of 6 sins and relate it to modern themes like plastic surgery, policing, privilege, plagiarism, patriarchy and the pandemic.
Drag has given me a way to enunciate my gender expression and gender-fluid personality. It has helped me embrace my pansexuality and gender identity. Every time I perform drag, I become stronger than I am; it’s a political tool through which I can reflect and question the society and its binary standards. It gives me the freedom to be my authentic self unapologetically. Drag has also helped me to relook my beliefs. It has helped me question my idea of iconography and ethnology of myths, systems, and concepts and has helped me deconstruct these ideas to make them more inclusive. Drag is a medium for me to exist on Earth with pride and freedom.
I believe the day is not far away when drag will include people from all walks of life and will be able to spread its wings in India. One day, it will be considered art and not a secret affair which we hide it in our bedrooms. It’s time for people like us to claim those public view spots and ensure the widening of the idea of gender expression.
Patruni Chidananda Sastry is a Classical Dancer, Artpreneur and Tranimal Drag artist from Hyderabad. Patruni started dancing from the age of 7. Patruni Sastry’s style in Drag called ‘Expressionism’ is a new way to tell stories and create awareness in the society. Patruni is also the founder of Dragvanti, One of India’s drag specific blog and contributes to it via presenting topics of Indian drag history and culture.
About the Photographer:
Manab Das is a Freelance Photographer from West Bengal who now lives in Hyderabad. Besides capturing the beauty of love and colours with his wedding photography, Das explores abstract and thematic photography. Some of his work embodies the contrast captures of art forms such as Bharatanatyam, Indian Expressionism, Butoh, and Tranimal drag. Owner of ‘Tasveers by dmanab’, Das’s work has created a significant difference in Indian Abstract Photography.
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