Gender Bender

HAD I dozed off in front of the telly watching Anne Lennox do a sexy drag number? Although this dream seemed a little too real... here I was...

HAD I dozed off in front of the telly watching Anne Lennox do a sexy drag number? Although this dream seemed a little too real8230; here I was, standing in front of a red curtain, hot sodium lights glowering at me.

Dressed in a grey-blue dinner jacket and trousers, my crisp blue shirt with its stiff collar and pearly buttons was set off by a soft blue crochet muffler. Square-toed shoes and a belt whose buckle gleamed in the light ensured the attention of the prettiest girl in the front row was caught. With slicked-back hair and a French beard, I had turned into a boy-man, ready to take on all the oestrogen the room had to offer.

The strange thing about this dream except for the fact that I8217;m actually a woman and the 8216;beard8217; was painted on with a Lakme brow pencil, was that I wasn8217;t dreaming. I was, in fact, test-driving Mumbai8217;s first-ever drag king show in an eastern pocket of one of the city8217;s suburbs.

The airy terrace, cordoned off by a pandal, gave it the look of a wedding reception, but what the heck this wasn8217;t Broadway. Agreed, the 40-odd LGBT folk read lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered with a few heteros sprinkled for good measure constituted more of an intimate gathering than a crowd. But being up there had its own charm8212;I had metamorphosed.

Georgina was polite at parties, sipped her wine and talked about art. George, on the other hand, winked, flirted and blew smoke rings at all the ladies. It had them clapping and whistling8230; I must have got something right.

Okay, so maybe I need to explain drag to the uninitiated: It8217;s when adults do what some kids in convents or all-boys schools have been doing for years. Play-acting to be a gender they8217;re not.

There are a lot of heterosexual people out there too, who love to drag just for kicks. Why? Because it8217;s fun! To be politically correct, it8217;s to expand those boundaries that postulate: girls are all sugar 8217;n8217; spice and everything nice, and boys, snails and puppy dogs8217; tails. The boy next to me had on a sexy black gown that he8217;d designed to go with his version of Madonna8217;s Frozen. Nope, not one bit of snail or puppy in this kohled and lip-lined beauty.

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8216;8216;Actually you look better with a beard and moustache,8217;8217; teased one of the girls. I don8217;t think the men at the buffet serving dinner agreed with her wholeheartedly8212;considering they slopped the bhelpuri and forgot to shut their mouths when I approached for my share. I felt deliciously wicked for not switching back even after the performance. Being introduced to my friend8217;s mother with a moustache and beard was quite a novelty. Although by now she doesn8217;t bat an eyelid at dos like this and, in fact, complimented me on my ensemble. Now let8217;s see what my dad says when he reads this article.