Dance like a man

It was afternoon when we reached the Golden Fortress in Jaisalmer. Tourists stopped to stare at Kumar in her finery and take photographs. I love you Queen,youre gorgeous, drawled a man from a window. As others gathered around,she flirted with them,teasing them about their wives and girlfriends.

We moved to a terrace to shoot Queen Harish while she danced. As she began to swirl,the sun caught the little stones on her ghagra,but her feet disappeared in a whirr. The crowd that had followed us cheered as she bent backwards,till you thought her spine would crack. A hint of cleavage,and a silence descended on the men.

At the end of her little performance,a man approached her for her mobile number as always. But she had no time for chit-chat. Like the other Jaisalmer women briskly walking towards their houses to make lunch,Queen Harish had to return home as Kumar,a 30-year-old man,father of two and bread-winner of a household of seven. The spell was already beginning to fade.

Ill be home in a few hours. Grocery shopping tomorrow? Kumar was on the phone with his elder sister,who lives with his wife and two sons. And there was ice-cream duty tonight which he needed to be home for. In a few hours,Ill be back at the same spot where Queen was flirting and stop for ice cream with my sons. And though they know that I was here a while ago,the store owner will have a routine conversation with Harish, said Kumar. For a decade now,he has been comfortable with this dual life,has indeed celebrated it. I have the best of both worlds, he said.

Queen Harish is world famous in Rajasthan,and a little more than that. In 2007,he was featured in Gypsy Caravan,a documentary made by American Jasmine Dellal that won several awards at film festivals abroad. He has travelled extensively across the United States,Europe,Japan and South Korea,with performances at the Bellydancing Championships in Seoul,Raqs Congree in Brussels,Desilicious in New York and at LAs Getty Centre. Now,he takes the stage in a reality show on Colors called Indias Got Talent,the Indian franchise of the British show Got Talent.

Jaisalmer is not a small city because of its area,its small because everybody knows your nickname before they know your good name. Here,tourism is what brings the money and nearly everybody is a part of it. When I started dancing in drag,over 10 years ago,it was not seen as something out of the ordinary. The shows were mainly for foreign tourists. What mattered was whether I was a good dancer or not, said Kumar.

And if any performer wanted to have a future,they had to make sure they landed international tours. The first few shows that Kumar did were group tours with other Rajasthani artists. He rapidly networked and found himself invited to more shows. Over the past decade,he has built a repertoire of styles that range from Rajasthani folk and garba to belly-dancing and an improvised version of Bollywood dance. It wasnt easy to get a break in the West,but I found fellow belly dancers who sponsored workshops. With every workshop,I sharpened my technique, he said. And with every tour,his confidence increased. The English I learnt in school had to be brushed up. I learnt how to drop words like totally,cool,fabulous and sexy into my sentences. Oh and awesome,how can I forget awesome! cried Kumar,smacking his forehead with a laugh.

His breakthrough act came last year when Kumar was asked by designers Lecoanet and Hemant to walk the ramp for a Wills India Fashion Week show. Lecoanet warned me. He said that the audience would think Im a hijra. But I didnt care. Walking the ramp was like acting,it was a part, he said. He wore a very feminine,pink off-shoulder dress with traditional Rajasthani bangles. I had to practise walking in those shoes in the hotel corridor. I stayed up all night to get the walk right, he said. And he did. Rohit Bal whistled and clapped from the front row and the media descended on him backstage. The hoopla lasted three days and then I went back to dancing. But it was very flattering all the same, he said.

As we walked through the lanes and bylanes leading to Kumars house,friends and acquaintances called out to him,greetings were exchanged,backs were playfully thumped. In his living room,his two sons,aged two and four years,darted in and his wife darted out,making arrangements for water and fruit. At home,Kumar is the father,the brother and the provider. His elder sister Rekha recalled how Harish dropped out of school and joined a dance troupe after their parents died. I had a day job at the post office and at night I would dance in the troupe. I did that for a while till one day,for a sudden solo performance,I decided to dress in drag. The performance was a big success, said Kumar. He discovered that as a woman,his talent as a dancer could be recognised; there was more scope for him as a performer and,yes,there was more money in it.

But for the 20-year-old,this new career demanded sacrifices. He stopped meeting us or speaking to us, said childhood friend and schoolmate Vinod Thanavil,who dropped by for a quick chat. We knew why he had to perform like this. He had to provide for a family, said Thanavil,who sometimes organises local shows for Queen Harish. For us,hes always been Harish,whose profession is separate from the man we know. And were always there to protect Queen Harish whose admirers keep growing every day, he said.

His admirers are often pushy. Men will always turn up backstage. Whether it is Jaisalmer or Japan,it doesnt matter that under all those clothes I am a man, said Kumar. He recalled how local politicians,actors and foreign tourists have,more than once,proposed to take things further. What did he do then? Oh,I have several tricks. The one that usually works is where I tell them to wait for me while I go off to powder my nose. I get into the car with the rest of my team,switch my phone off and were off! he said.

From the corner of the room,his sons watched their father. The y dont know what Daddy does for a living but they are aware that he is away a lot. His wife hasnt met Queen Harish and Kumar has no intentions of bringing work home. How do you think my marriage has worked out? he said with a chuckle. But Rekha admitted softly: Someday Id like to attend a show. We hear so much about them.

His manager Arnaud Azzouz says Queen Harish is exceptional for many reasons. He is not a product of the Indian/Bollywood entertainment industry. He is self-made and exported his talent to the West, said Azzouz. The fact that he is a family man is an aspect of Harishs life that Azzouz wishes to downplay,for business purposes. Queen Harish is a diva, he said. Surely a portrait of Kumar with groceries will kill that image.

Kumar,on the other hand,said he did not mind. I want to be able to dance as Harish too. I love being Queen Harish: shes naughty,wicked and full of spunk. But I would like to give Harish that opportunity, he said.