Meet Ayushmaan, Lawyer By Day, Drag Queen By Night, Fighting the 'Girlish-Boy' Stereotype One Dance At A Time

¡°Once you show someone the chink in your armour, they come for you.¡± These are the first words out of Ayushmaan¡¯s mouth when we ask him about his journey as a drag queen. ¡°It was always there. I remember wrapping myself up in my mother¡¯s dupatta and putting on her jewellery when I was about four years old¡±, says the 28-year-old, who is also a human rights lawyer by profession.

Sahiba Chaudhary

Just like the rest of us, Ayushmaan¡¯s growing up years were plagued by questions as he figured out who he really is. Hailing from Ranchi, Ayushmaan was lucky with parents who never stopped him from being himself. In fact, his mother would encourage him to dance to Madhuri Dixit songs and never called him out for not being ¡®manly¡¯ enough. However, while home is haven the outside world wasn¡¯t too kind to Ayushmaan. He was at the receiving end of bullying while in school. That played a major role in how he decided to portray himself to the world and that¡¯s when he eventually started hiding his true self from the world.

Ayushmaan always knew he wasn¡¯t like the rest of his school mates, Ayushmaan says, "It was always there. I always knew. A queer person always knows they¡¯re queer and in my case, that is something I was always aware of.¡±

It has not been an easy journey for Ayushmaan, society doesn¡¯t let us breathe in our own space and this hindered him from living his life to the fullest. "Eventually, I became whatever the person in front of me wanted me to be. I always loved the performing arts and started doing theater but I could never give myself fully to the art form. I was not ¡®masculine enough¡¯ to play male roles and of course, no female roles came my way because I¡¯m not a woman," he says.

It was the Emmy-winning series, RuPaul¡¯s Drag Race, that introduced the world of drag queens to Ayushmaan in 2016. Though he was thrilled to find a whole new way of expressing himself, the idea of doing drag by himself didn't strike him back then. ¡°I became a fan right after watching the first season but I didn¡¯t grasp the concept. Once I was properly engrossed in the show, I realised that these are artists with stories that need to be heard. It had everything from designing to dance to make-up to music. It was basically an amalgamation of everything that I loved and all of it is what drag is. They navigated gender exactly like how I did in my mind,¡± recollects Ayushmaan.

After introducing the show to his best friend, the two of them eventually decided to give it a go. As revolutionary as it sounds, it wasn¡¯t a cakewalk to make the change. After struggling to find stores that stocked the right buy make-up, clothes and heels, Ayushmaan went home and dolled up for the first time. ¡°I felt so empowered; the two of us dancing to music in a room with no one watching. In that one moment, I felt beautiful,¡± says Ayushmaan, who christened himself in the drag avataar, with the name Lush Monsoon.

There was no looking back. Ayushmaan liked dressing up in drag so much he did as often as he could. It was a lip-syncing competition on Reddit which was for only queer people gave Ayushmaan the final boost that he needed to be where he is today.

It has been five years, since the metamorphosis from Ayushmaan to Lush Monsoon, and it is more than just face paint and heels. ¡°It is a process. It is not just putting on the make-up and becoming someone else. If someone magically slapped on a face on me, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ever be able to do any justice to being Lush. Every brush stroke is a process of self-love. Every time I do my make-up, I want to do something different, something unique. It is a mental transition into that state of letting Ayushmaan go and Lush taking over.¡±

Lush and her friends are used to being approached by people who are completely mesmerised by their beauty. Young people these days are extremely well-informed about the LGBTQ+ community and those are exactly the kind of people Lush likes to perform for.
¡°They come to me and tell me that I¡¯m their inspiration. For me, they are mine," says Ayushmaan. He recalls an incident where a girl walked up to him after his performance and told him about how depressed she was feeling but watching Lush perform gave her a sense of happiness. For obvious reasons, that would mean a lot to an artist and especially the kind of artist that knows the value of being able to do what they love in spite of facing so many obstacles in life.

Lush¡¯s USP is lip-syncing and ballads where she wants each person in her audience to feel emotions at their maximum capacity. Whether its joy or sorrow, Lush performs to touch people¡¯s hearts. From performing publicly in parks and roads to entertaining audiences at different venues and night clubs, the drag queens of our country are making sure that drag is no longer an unknown and alien concept to people, but a part of our mainstream culture.

The sisterhood of the drag queens is also a major support system in their lives. They are each other¡¯s backbones and there are plenty of times that they get booked as a group for several events. Of course, in every art form, there is rivalry and according to Lush, healthy rivalry plus sisterhood plus drama is what makes a drag queen complete.