‘Drag is political’: the pioneering Indian event uniting art and activism

Artists from traditional communities and new wave performers to come together online for the country's first drag conference

Two years ago, in early June 2019, a young man stepped on stage at a small cafe in the south Indian city of Hyderabad to sing Lady Gaga's hit song Born This Way. He had chosen that song for the line don't be a drag, just be a queen" because this would be his first public performance as a drag artist. He had expected no more than a handful of people to turn up for this show with two other drag artists, but as the evening progressed, the cafe filled with more than 500 people. In a conservative city like Hyderabad, that was a huge surprise.

It has been a long journey for Patruni Chidananda Sastry, who began to learn classical Indian dance at the age of five. Now 29 and working as a business analyst, he performs Tranimal - a postmodern drag concept born in Los Angeles in the mid-2000s - and more conventional drag using the avatar of SAS (Suffocated Art Specimen - how he describes himself). On 25 June he is organising the first drag conference in India, as part of Dragvanti , his online initiative to bring together drag artists from across the country.