Text credits: Lakshmi Priya

The ‘drag queen’ may not be a very familiar performance art to the people of India. For those who don’t know, drag queens are men who usually dresses in hyper-feminised or gender non-conforming clothing. They provide entertainment to the people in various forms of singing, dancing, lip-syncing and many more by usually in a sarcastic manner. Even though the drag queens are usually associated with gay men, it is not generic. People from all sexualities stage these mainly for reasons like self-expression, transvestic fetishism, and even spiritual reasons. One of the main reasons for their lack of popularity can be because of the lack of artists performing in this art form, which can be due to certain predominant gender stereotypes prevalent in our country. But here, we have a list of drag queens from India who have broken the chains of stereotypes and trodden their path as drag queens to express themselves the best.

Alex Mathew (Mayamma)

Image source: The Better India

Born and brought up in Kerala, Alex Mathew is one among the few drag queen artists in India. His dream of performing in the Broadway eventually lead him to be a drag queen. A person who also wanted to do something out-of-the-box, Alex began his career as a drag queen in September 2014. Alex portrays his character ‘Mayamma’ (Mother of Magic) on the limelight as a simple yet outspoken, bold and strong-willed woman who fights for gender equality. Alex wanted his character to be relatable to the normal audience as well as a performance close to the LGBT community. Mayamma depicts the abuses women have to undergo in their life. While talking to the media about the misconceptions on drag queens Alex stated that Drag queen is not a performance art solely performed by gay men. In fact, men of all sexuality have been performing this art on stage. People have been mistaking Alex to be a member of LGBT community. Even though he is not, he is happy about the inspiration he shed out to them.

Rovin Sharma (Roveena Tampon)

This one is my poster shoot and the most loved and admired couldn't stop myself from sharing although it's on google everywhere already #indiandragqueen #roveenatampon #rupaulsdragrace #dragdiaries #indiandrag #dragme #bobbibrown #fashionblogger #fashionista #lasenza #zara #forever21 #lalithotels #dragqueen

A post shared by Roveena Tampon (@roveenatampon) on Jan 14, 2018 at 10:12pm PST

Battling with masculinity and feminity, Rovin Sharma, born and brought in Haryana left his home in despair when he was 17 years old. Later, Rovin became an active LGBT member in Lalit group, working for the betterment of the community. Rovin Sharma transformed into Roveena Tampon when she first stepped on to the drag queen art after doing a lip sync performance in Kolkatta. Roveena’s performances started luring the audience at the famous Kitty Su nightclub that belongs to Keshav Suri. The character Roveena is a mixture of various qualities. She is the queen who is bold, classy at times and naughty.

Sushant Divgikar (Rani-Ko-HE-Nur)

Image source: twitter.com (@thedivasushant)

An actor, model, dancer, singer, video jockey, drag queen and what not! Bagged the title of Mr Gay 2014, Sushanth Divgikar has always been the face of LGBT community of India. Even though Sushant was performing drags in small scale for a long time, his performance at Kitty Su, in front of the internationally popular drag queen ‘Violet Chachki’ changed his life. From then on, Sushanth is regularly featuring as Rani-Ko-He-Nur at all the Kitty Su chains of nightclubs. Sushant flawlessly carries off Rani-Ko-He-Nur in a traditional and royal lehenga choli as well as in sexy lingerie. Rani is outspoken, sassy and absolutely unapologetic for being herself.

Ayush and Ikakshu

Image source: hindustantimes.com

Ayush and Ikakshu mostly perform together because they both are good friends and lawyers by profession and who fiercely broke the misconceptions about drag queens. Ikakshu appears in his drag queen character ‘Kushboo’, a young and confident woman who challenges gender stereotypes. Whereas Ayush does the role of ‘Lush monsoon’, a free-spirited bohemian woman. The duo from Delhi had this idea of performing as drag queens ever since studying in law school together. Now, they have unimaginably conquered the hearts of people as fearless drag queens.

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