Be a Drag

Queer people seek languages outside the verbal because our words are often suppressed.

- Darshita Goyal

That's where beauty and fashion come in,” says Suruj, a Mumbai-based drag queen who goes by the name of Glorious Luna and the founder of LGBTQIA+ talent agency Current Management. “Beauty creates a democratic space of expression where outsiders like us can just be who we want to be.”

This freedom to grow and nurture alter egos, and shape-shift into new personas with the help of bold makeup, big, lace front wigs and towering heels is at the heart of drag culture. Luna appears as Sandro Botticelli's Venus on one day—donning ethereal coral-inspired headgear, bronzed lips, and feather lashes—and transforms into cosmic dancer Nataraja the next, wearing ghungroos in her hair, a cutting red on her lips and enough highlighter to summon the divine.

Globally, Sasha Velour's surreal aesthetic has become synonymous with drag activism while Trixie Mattel has built Barbie dreamhouses celebrating her fierce, pink persona. Even in India, queer-led events like the Delhi International Queer Theatre and Film Festival, the Hyderabad Drag Con, Mumbai's The It Ball, and a series of Kitty Su and Kitty Ko drag nights have brought the gender bending expression to the fore, with drag queens making to magazine covers and Netflix shows like Mismatched (2020-2022).

While its contemporary fame and acceptance is new, drag culture's provenance is rooted in a more underground scene. Turn back the clock to Shakespearean times, an era when women were discouraged from performing on stage and men would take their place. In fact, the name ‘drag’ is believed to originate from the act of these actors walking on the stage in long gowns that would drag across the floor.