“Pride means that I can love myself when no one cares, especially when I can’t find love for me”
Durga Gawde has a million colours in them and boundless energy. They come in for this hurriedly scheduled Zoom meeting with a smile and personally, I freak out a bit (okay, a lot. But you have to understand, they are pretty amazing). Getting to meet them was a dream come true and getting to interview them felt surreal. I couldn’t believe my luck that Durga Gawde was sitting across me (granted, through Zoom) eating Puliogare rice because they didn’t get time before. They although did not get to finish it as we talked about almost everything under the sun, whether it be the ridiculousness of uniform or ridiculous people on dating sites or the hate they get. They made jokes, were thoughtful, were open and honest and very thought-provoking.
I started off with a disclaimer, asking them to call me out if at all I say anything that hurt them and that it is out of ignorance and not malice.
They said they wished everyone in their life came with that disclaimer and it felt unfair to know, that someone with so much joy and cheer has to go through this. But Durga Gawde has a million colours in them and for an hour, we basked in its sunshine. Here is the edited version of one and a half hours that meant the world to me.
We know that you are half Malayali, so let me begin by asking the most quintessential Mallu question, how has Kerala affected you?
There is a lot to unpack about our culture in this. It is a very important part of my life to be Indian. But growing up, I was not exposed to my Malayalee side at all. My mother is a Mallu, she ran away and got married, in this whole fantasy situation. But what ended up happening was I wasn’t raised a Malayalee at all, I was raised a Maharashtrian and my Malayalee family disowned my mom, and my mom disowned them. So there was a lot of time lost.
The first time I met my cousins was at my grandfather’s funeral when I was four. I realized I was Malayalee when I was 8 years old.
But after the age of around 13, I started making an effort to connect with all of my cousins. By the way, I have nine cousins from my mother’s side. They were four sisters and that makes us nine. And now that we are grown up, they have now become a very important part of my life. I am very close to my cousins. Quintessentially, what Kerala has helped me realize is that I am not in touch with my heritage. I want to get more in touch with that part of me, understand mindsets and trace that heritage.
But you know what’s cool? My mom’s father owned a factory. He was from the Kollar caste (a blacksmith caste) and he worked with iron a lot and when I went to college to learn sculpture, the first medium I connected with was steel. What took my fellow classmates 2 weeks, took me only two hours.
Watch: Durga shares a memory of their grandfather
So you are a sculptor, an artist, India’s first drag king, and performer, activist and so much more. You have so many titles to describe you, so what is your favourite way to be described?
I have thought about that question for a very long time. And I found the answer to that question 3 years ago. And now I am at this place where Durga the person has to accept what they have learnt. And I will be ready to talk about that shortly, but not right now. Before I put this out publicly I want to think about the people around me who look up to me. It has taken me my whole life to figure out the answer to this question so I want to make a big deal out of it when I say it publicly.
What is your latest project?
I have been connecting with people who are like me, people who have led parallel lives in different parts of the world. And I want to bring them to India for a drag show. I have been working on it for 2 months.
I have been working to create a virtual space for assigned females at birth( AFAB) to be inspired by. The rainbow revolution is going to bring a lot of international drag kings. It won’t happen in Pride month but I want people to know that this will happen. I want to get the support and build on that support this month so that the people who are doing it can do it better than even they thought they could.
How has changing the pronouns empowered you?
My reality in India, where I am always addressed by the pronouns that feel comfortable to me, is not here yet. It’s only my friends, queer people, activists to whom this comes naturally and ensure that they don’t see me as a woman in their head.
My childhood friends, my family still have a hard time. We have a hard time getting it right and then they feel bad about not getting it right and they don’t want to be seen as ignorant and stupid so they always say “you know what I mean”. I go like, no! I don’t know what you mean. What you mean should be what you say. And if you didn’t say it, then I will correct you. Don’t expect me to be ok with it. Intentions are not enough. Actions need to be taken. So if the action is not happening from anybody who I care about, what I do is I say, don’t waste your time feeling bad with me. So every time you say my pronoun wrong, I will immediately correct you. The moment you hear me correct you, stop yourself, don’t say sorry, acknowledge what I’ve done, correct yourself at that moment and then move on. If you don’t correct yourself at that time, the change will not happen.
This is not me just educating the whole world and understanding myself by overcoming the damage done to me but also educating every person every time when they misgender me. And the only thing I expect from the people who are close to me is to understand where I’m coming from. One day I counted. I wanted to know why this affected me so badly so I carried a clicker and I was surprised to find this number- I was misgendered more than 250 times a day!
So yeah, this is a really big problem. Like, imagine if someone calls you some other name 250 times a day. Then why in the world would you want to talk to me? That’s what I want people to understand. When someone offers a new perspective the only way to empathize is to take their word for it.
What does drag mean to you?
I started drag not because I thought I would be able to do it. I would watch drag and feel like I also want a wig, I also want makeup. I also want to feel pretty when I want to feel pretty. And I wanted to feel handsome when I wanted to feel handsome. I wanted to do what I wanted. Also because of the process of making.
After all my years in the US, I went to my first drag show in India. I went for a drag show off Alaska. And I met Rani KoHEnoor there. Then I met them backstage and I showed Rani a photograph of me with a five o’clock shadow. Rani then said that I am going to be India’s first drag king and that she will book me and she will mentor me. I was surprised. Then she found me and she contacted me and put me on the invite list of every show that she did. And she would say, come and see what I am doing, learn how I am doing and do it in your way. Should say she can’t teach me how to be a drag king and what she could do was believe in me that I could do it. She can sing very well. She can do a duet on her own and that is a god’s gift and she nurtures it and puts herself there and that is what is inspiring. And her look, costume, everything is hard work. Vanity is hard work. And you have to nurture and find the right people for it and she does it. Rani is my mama. It’s been a struggle. I might not have done a lot of shows, but I make sure to amplify it because I know how hard it was for me to get here.
Drag for me is finding my Shakthi ( their drag name). If what is inside is allowed to be on the outside, that is what drag is. You can do anything with it.
What is the rainbow revolution and how can we help?
The rainbow revolution is a movement for AFAB by AFAB of AFAB. Virtual spaces are genderless and we have more autonomy and access over it. AFAB use virtual spaces for a very different reason than assigned males at birth. I think, AFAB you said to connect, emotionally more. The Rainbow Revolution is a place of AFAB for AFAB by AFAB. A fab place for AFAB. Oh my god, I just found the tagline. I am building a team now I am looking for interns and looking for a lot of things and if you want to help you can reach out to me on any medium- Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
I think you would be a great person to ask this. What does gender non-binary and gender fluid actually mean?
There are four things to consider when talking about a person’s personal identity. The first thing is assigned sex. It is biology. It is the body that they are born in. But even within the assigned sex, there is a spectrum. There are people who are intersex. I am not an intersex person. An intersex person is a person who is born with ambiguous sexual characteristics. Human beings decided that ambiguous sexual characteristics should not exist. Without giving choice to the baby a lot of the times the doctors do operations to “fix it”. I am not the right person to elaborate on that so I won’t. Assigned sex is not something that is in your control.
Next is gender identity. Now gender is inside your brain- between your ears and not between your legs. Gender is the way that you see yourself and you identify yourself. When you can recognise yourself in the mirror then you have started to identify yourself. The whole world remembers your face. And your face is the only part of your body that you have never seen personally. Your face has the ability to be as masculine or feminine as you want at any time. Your face can seem so much depending on what you do to it. Your gender identity is on the inside. But your gender expression is on the outside. How you express what you feel inside about yourself is called gender expression. And then there is sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is something that you usually figure out during your puberty. It is, I think, the last thing that informs your identity.
I came out at 11 as bisexual. It was the only word that I knew. But I always knew that that was not the right word and that there was more than to me. Right now a lot of people think that all of these four things that make up a personal identity should be one way or the other. But it is not like that.
I think that everyone has masculine and feminine energy and they know what makes them free comfortable.
I’m gonna end it with one, simple question. What does pride mean to you?
Pride…. Pride means that I can love myself when no one cares, especially when I can’t find love for me. That is what pride is, finding that space.
They sign off happily, ready to change some more minds and face hate head-on. They are ready to scale new heights and go for a live to call out a troll. It’s every other day for Durga Gawde. Another extraordinary every day.
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