RainbowMan: Exploring My Feminine Side at the Queer Azaadi March

Harish Iyer on his experience of dressing up as a woman for the first time at the Mumbai Gay Pride Parade

Harish Iyer dressed up as a woman for the Mumbai Gay Pride Parade (Photo: Judhajit Bagchi)

I’m a proud feminist.  But beyond being a feminist, I believe in the equality of all genders and even those who would not want to define themselves as a part of the gender binary. I believe that gender is just a social construct. Moreover, I believe that one doesn’t need a vagina to get in touch with one’s feminine side.

So, this year on the occasion of the Queer Azaadi March a.k.a Mumbai Gay Pride Parade, I decided to explore my feminine side and be in full exhibit. I wanted kajal and lip gloss. I wanted dangerous curves and lovely hair. I wanted a pretty dress and sexy high heeled shoes!

Harish Iyer gets in touch with his feminine side (Photo: Judhajit Bagchi)

This year, I decided that I needed to not only explore, but also express my feminine side. My partners in crime were the incredibly talented film-makers Ranadeep Bhattacharyya and Judhajit Bagchi, who happen to be my best friends. You might remember them as the director duo behind Amen, a film based on my life. We brainstormed and thus emerged my look… a beautiful mix of old Hollywood and Sandra-from-Bandra. I wanted to be a woman who was mysterious yet relatable, powerful, yet vulnerable.

Harish Iyer at the Queer Azaadi March in Mumbai (Photo: Judhajit Bagchi)

There are many women who inspired me to explore my feminine side. My first inspiration would always be the cinema-goddess of my childhood… Sridevi!  I used to watch Sridevi bash goondas and then don an outlandish costume to gyrate to a dhinchak song. I wanted to be Hawa-Hawai.

Sridevi as Ms Hawa Hawai in Mr India

I wanted to be Jacqueline Kennedy. I was always captivated by her old world feminity and winter-sunshine smile that often overshadowed the men in her life. You gotta admit, she was way hotter than JFK!

Jacqueline Kennedy on the cover of Time

I wanted to channel my inner Barkha Dutt as I took the stage and interviewed celebrities and members of the LGBTQI community. If I was going to do patrakaargiri, I had to do it like the most badass woman in the business!

While it was easy to find a classy dress and a nice pair of shoes, the look was missing drama. I wanted sixties hair and I wanted wings… because I’m a diva, a dancer and an angel all rolled into one. Like say… Helen from Teesri Manzil or Caravan.

The one and only dancing queen – Helen

And finally my look was complete. While many friends and fellow LGBT people congratulated me on my look saying it was exceptional and out of this world… I think, I just look like my mommy Padma Iyer. She is this spicy-sexy supermom who has the energy of a school girl on a sugar rush. Take a look and tell me… I look like my mummy… hai na?

Harish with his mother, Padma Iyer 

There is a lot of prejudice against people who are different, people who are effeminate, people who drag. In my little way, I tried getting into their skin. It was fun when street kids called me AUNTY...  and I wanted to respond with “aunty mat kaho naa!” We sometimes are so repulsed by people who dress differently, that our conduct becomes repulsive. I got to experience it firsthand. I got to experience, whistles and raised eye brows. I experience chivalry and ankle sores (damn the high heel shoes)... and it was tough. Sometimes we men need to step out of the closet of our prejudice.  This was my peep, and it was fantastic.

To all the people who denounce the Gay Pride Parade as nautanki, I say, guys live a little. To those who say they support the LGBT community but don’t like the ‘tamasha’ we do on the streets, I ask isn’t every baraat a sort of heterosexual pride parade? To those who wonder how can one be proud of something they are not responsible for, I say two things:

First, thank you for understanding that one’s sexuality is not a choice. Secondly, isn’t pride a nice positive reinforcement for people condemned to feel ashamed of themselves for something they are not responsible for? Pride for us LGBT people is a celebration of our existence. Finally, the word pride itself. Don’t we associate lions with courage? Isn’t it courageous to assert one’s identity in a society that still criminalises an act of love? Aren’t we lions? And what do we call a group of lions… a Pride!

(Harish Iyer is an equal rights activist working for the rights of the LGBT community, women, children and animals. ‘Rainbow Man’ is Harish’s regular blog for The Quint)