Embracing the divine

Drag performers like Alex Mathew bring out the daring, dynamic, wild, and enchanting projection of femininity, writes Shilok Mukkati

In life, everything is performed and we pull them rigorously to tell a story. In that process, we discover and redefine who we are? In 2016, I invited Mayamma for my radio show Colourful Kamanabillu, a radio series of Bengaluru queer stories. She is one of the popular Drag performers in Bengaluru. I was still learning my alphabets of LGBTQIA+ and Drag was something new for me. For the first time when I heard about Drag, it did fascinate me with its wild performing styles and acts. Also, I fell in love with Drag performers. Mayamma is one of them.

A performer uses their body, sex, gender to tell stories in various forms. A Drag performer magnifies them to do the same. Everything here is extraordinary. If you have seen Drag queens you would know the daring, dynamic, wild, and enchanting projection of femininity. Now, what if it is more than a performance? And it is. Alex Mathew, with his Drag personality Mayamma, is on a journey of divine femininity reconnaissance. It all began when Alex chose to stand up for the women in his family and himself. “Twenty-five years of my life I was pushed to follow the social conditioning. As a quarter crisis, I questioned myself as to when I would start listening to myself? That’s how my journey battling oppression began. That’s when I gave birth to Maya. Drag, as a performance, brought me closer to my feminine side. I come from a conservative background, where Drag is seen as comical, not an appreciation of women. I choose the form which appreciates the women.” shares Alex and continues, “Alex and Mayamma are part of the same personality. Maya is a part of me, I magnify her a thousand times when I perform. The stage requires that kind of magnification.”

Alex believes his Drag performance is the source of divine femininity. Where he describes, “We all have a part of an inner woman or in India how we say shakthi. I don’t let anybody disturb my shakthi.

That inner shakthi is divine femininity for me. It is like how we all have a sacred place where you allow wholeheartedly. This personification can be seen as intuition. The inner shakthi in you will always guide you better than anyone.” We often compartmentalise gender performances or ignore the balance of gender. Performers like Alex, who is a cisgender queer man, have a lot to teach the binary world. And why do we do so? So that we can transform toxic masculinity with the wisdom of divine feminity. Drag is one such tool to enhance the inner shakthi, but there are various forms of femininity we can use in our lives to bring balance. Suppression of gender expression and conditioning the fluidity of gender is unfair.

Femininity or divine femininity is absolutely the opposite of vulnerability, and today that’s what we have to start redefining by celebrating femininity.

(The author is a performer, poet & feminist activist who has left a mark with her art, poetry, LGBTQIA+ talks, and feminist ideologies. This column will share untold stories of inclusivity & diversity.)