Photo Project: Chitrangada The Heroin of Rabindranath Tagore By Andy

An evening while sipping a lebu cha with two samosas, in my early college days when I see the name ‘Chandalika’, a play written by Rabindranath Tagore listed to be premiered the very next day. I force a couple of friends who manage to get the tickets and watched the entire show. That was the very first time I was introduced to the Heroines of Rabindranath Tagore. It was a little amusing to be a south Indian Telegu kid in love with Tagore’s Bengali literature. Half my life has been spent in Bengal since I was born, and was accustomed to so much inward culture by travelling to corners of the state, that I still joke around with friends that I am a converted Bengali if something like that is real. Having said that, Tagore’s musicals and his characterisations of women in these twisted plots indeed made be relatable. I would watch these plays and feel like it was my story, my genderfluid self would always try to relate to these heroines’ gender complex. As time passed, I was introduced to many such characters. But two which prompted me to question the structure of Gender were Potrolekha from Tasher Desh [Nation of Cards] and Chitrangada from Chitrangada

There are certain characters that do not simply live on the page — they linger in the body, reshaping how one understands selfhood. My encounter with Chitrangada, imagined by Rabindranath Tagore, was one such moment. She arrived not as a distant literary heroine but as a mirror to my own negotiations with gender, strength, and desire. In revisiting her through drag, I was less interested in retelling a story and more invested in inhabiting a question: what happens when identity refuses to remain singular?

Chitrangada entered the project not merely as a character but as a question — how does one inhabit power when the world insists on naming it masculine or feminine? Drawn from Rabindranath Tagore’s exploration of a ruler raised beyond gendered expectations, I approached her as a living contradiction: a body trained for battle yet tender in desire.

Our visual language took cues from Rituparno Ghosh’s interpretation, where transformation is not cosmetic but existential. Instead of royal opulence, we imagined Chitrangada as a tribal sovereign — closer to the earth, instinctive, and unornamented in her authority. The choice of a green sari draped in a Kohima-inspired style allowed the silhouette to oscillate between armor and adornment, refusing to settle into a single gendered reading.

Aniket envisioned strength before beauty, while the Renusaa team constructed garments that felt simultaneously ceremonial and utilitarian. Oxidised jewellery grounded the look in texture rather than glamour, and Sunny Vaibhav’s makeup balanced sharp, sculptural lines with softness, letting the face hold both command and vulnerability.

During the shoot, I climbed rocks and trees, letting the body speak the language of sovereignty. Under Anindya’s direction, the frames became less about portraying a queen and more about witnessing a being in negotiation with selfhood. The performance revealed that Chitrangada is not a transformation from masculine to feminine — she is the space where both coexist without hierarchy.

In embodying her, I realised the character’s enduring power: Chitrangada does not resolve gender; she expands it. And in that expansion, drag becomes not imitation, but reclamation — a return to a self that has always been plural.

That was when I tried to pitch the idea to recreate these images of Potrolekha and Chitrangada with Drag. The idea was to gender-bend both of these characters to dismiss the gender attitude. Soon we were up for collaboration with the fashion label Renusaa by Saikumar & Rehan and makeup artist Sunny Vaibhav. Another friend Anindya Biswas joined hands to photograph the project and set with the theme.

During the shoot, I climbed rocks and trees, letting the body speak the language of sovereignty. Under Anindya’s direction, the frames became less about portraying a queen and more about witnessing a being in negotiation with selfhood. The performance revealed that Chitrangada is not a transformation from masculine to feminine — she is the space where both coexist without hierarchy.

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In embodying her, I realised the character’s enduring power: Chitrangada does not resolve gender; she expands it. And in that expansion, drag becomes not imitation, but reclamation — a return to a self that has always been plural

In the end, Chitrangada offered more than an aesthetic exploration — she became a method of understanding multiplicity. Through collaboration, movement, and embodiment, the project affirmed that gender is not a destination but an evolving landscape. To perform Chitrangada was to recognise that power lies not in choosing between masculinity and femininity, but in allowing them to coexist without apology. And perhaps that is why her story continues to resonate: she reminds us that the most radical act is not transformation, but the courage to be whole.