FINDING PRIDE IN ART

From winning RuPaul's Drag Race and walking on runways to being the first international drag artiste to perform in India, Paul Jason Dardo a.k.a Violet Chachki has done it all. The performer talks to Bazaar India about their Atlanta roots, trouble with routine, and undying love for Rekha.

- JISHNU BANDYOPADHYAY

Violet Chachki is a mirage. On a torrid day in Delhi, the drag superstar is a blinding combination of poise and grandeur at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. The camera can barely keep up as she slips in and out of Raw Mango, Shivan & Narresh, Bloni, and Rajesh Pratap Singh ensembles. Before you know it, she blends in with the art that surrounds her. From Subodh Gupta’s ‘Orange Thing’ made of brass, steel and plastic, to Anish Kapoor’s ‘Mirror’, a misty void painted on aluminium, Chachki embodies it all and makes it her own. When Martha Fiennes’ art film Yugen is projected on her, she looks like a mob wife from a Japanese cyberpunk hit. I am barely surprised that she does it all with such ease. Chachki knows exactly what she wants, and how she wants it. She is violently professional, yet horribly fun, on set.

When I sit down with her for this story, Chachki is out of drag and back in their new apartment in Los Angeles. It’s a lazy morning and they cuddle with their sphinx cat, Eugene Ziegfeld Chachki, under a baby pink blanket. As someone who’s grown up watching her iconic lipsync to Lucian Piane’s Too Many Daddies on [reality TV show] RuPaul’s Drag Race