A set of hands with a deep tint of mehendi charms the room as “In Ankhon Ki Masti Ne” from Rekha’s Umrao Jaan plays. The parda lifts to uncover the new Umrao Jaan, who is visibly happy and is performing for a crowd that embraces the halloween skull makeup she has on, along with the graceful and fluid dance moves that they embody.
Rayyan, who portrays the new Umrao Jaan, nurtured this idea after reflecting on how muslim women are portrayed in mainstream media. Whether it’s Aishwarya Rai Bacchan’s Umrao Jaan or Madhuri Dixit Nene’s Chandramukhi from Devdas; they are both adorned in jewels and mehendi, filling the screen with their mesmerizing adah.
Q- What role do you think clothes played in building your identity before and after you came out?
Back when I used to have facial hair, I would use it like makeup to frame my face in a certain way. Clothes on the other hand, were a huge part of how I unconsciously saw myself and defined where I belonged within the gender binary. I recall attempting to internalize the hate for the color pink and everything “girlie”, I’m glad that was just a phase. I feel the most euphoric when I express myself femme, and femme/feminine styles do not equate to being a woman. While I acknowledge the frivolity of commercial feminine aesthetics like “barbiecore” and how capitalistic they get, I am simply too gleeful to be able to express myself.
There’s a memory amongst many trans individuals who used to try on their mother’s sarees growing up. I didn’t do it as I was growing up, but these days I find myself “making up” for it by wearing my mom’s old sarees.
Q- How do you think drag helps with understanding these “constructed” identities?
According to Judit Butler, gender is established as consistent through repeated performance. Ella Fincken explains that drag exposes gender as a performative act through its “glamourous doing of hyper expression”.
And by imitating gender, drag reveals the imitative structure of gender itself. When we see gender as something natural, it has serious social consequences that [establishes] a system in place that gives power to men and marginalizes women—-it gives power to the patriarchy.
Drag seemingly de-establishes the assumption of the natural binaries of man and woman by both deconstructing and exposing their performative and culturally founded reality[1] . A drag artist’s take on gender expression is often based on mainstream cultural representation of that gender expression, which is the culturally founded reality.
Q-What role do clothes play in portraying someone? Do you think clothes can be separated from the wearer’s identity?
I think that clothes play a very important role in portraying someone. We see time and time again when people appropriate cultures by trying to separate the culture from the clothing. I have used clothes and fashion to curate an aesthetic that I felt made me not look typically masculine. Sometimes I feel “gender dysphoria”, which shows that I have my own internalized ideas of gender.
Also read: On Gender Dysphoria
My own ideas come from a multitude of sources, ranging from all the women I grew up surrounded by and the cultural representation of them.
But when I do drag, I rarely perform the femme representation I saw amongst the women in my life, but instead it’s a rendition on cliche bollywood’s idea of muslim women and thus Umrao Jaan.
I don’t know if in every situation it’s a good or bad thing but I believe in a very fluid and spectrum-oriented world.
So sometimes appropriation stemming from a hurtful context and intention is bad and hurtful, and other times it can be a sign of unity and cohesion.
Q-When you play the “idea of a muslim woman” how does drag help with reclaiming the identity?
I don’t know if drag helps in reclaiming that identity of a muslim woman as much as it helps me in exploring that identity and exploring places where I feel my gender dysphoria is still rooted. Because I do try to adhere to a colonized, conventional and upper caste idea of beauty, the idea of femininity that even cisgender women do not wish to adhere to.
Being a Muslim woman on screen is based on stereotypes and an elaborate gender performance. I have met and known many Muslim women who are nothing close to the “representation” that we have on the screen. And my performance of it becomes a way of imitating that performance.
This has also become an act of rebellion; I included mehendi in the shoot and my performances because of my love affair with Mehendi. In our culture when ‘boys’ are young they get to do Mehendi for Eid and weddings, I used to look forward to it. That was until I reached puberty and was told, “boys don’t put on mehendi.” But that was then, and now I’m here.
