Photo Series : DDLJ - Demi Drag Love Journey by Alekhya Grace

Usually people are romantic, and always romance is seen as a thing between a man and a woman. To elaborate, the idea of romance is where the Masculinity is head over heel on the femininity. The Hero who can break the sky, knee down to give a rose, ride the heroine is horse everything is where a masculinity is driving towards femininity. Since childhood I grew up watching Bollywood films filled with the idea of binary romance. To get a girl one must be masc., so much so that he could break another man to so called “Own” her. As I grew up DDLJ aka Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge was a huge influence. I thought one must be Raj to win a person’s heart.

But not all of it went that cozy. My first ever relationship at the age of 18 was a terrible mess. I invested so much so to make it that I didn’t realize I was acting up as someone else. It was that time when I started realizing that I was bisexual. I couldn’t see that romance angle for both the genders I was with. For some I was over romantic, for others I was under. The idea of heart breaks, flings and emotional connects made me realize that this wasn’t a story I was told. Why didn’t I feel romantically attracted to men? why was I only romantically attracted to women? how am I attracted to anyone out of the binaries? that was the biggest question. Why was I not always romantically attracted to everyone with whom I had relationships? that was a huge question.

The complexity of my gender orientation even made me reflex the idea of romance. I shut the idea of connection of love, feelings, emotional bonding into my heart and just went away with my sexuality. The idea of not completely aligned with being “Masculine” and doing heroic thing as the romance which I grew up watching made me block the idea of expressing my romantic emotions. I felt this was not something which I need as I could try hard but never fit into the construct of the masc.- femme love system. I knew I was Gender fluid, then Pansexual and then nonbinary but I realized slowly its more that just one label. I am also someone who was Demi-romantic.

A demiromantic person is someone who only develops romantic feelings for another person when they have a strong emotional connection to them. Demiromantic people can be of any gender identity or sexual orientation.

Demiromanticism is part of the aromantic spectrum. Aromantic people do not feel any romantic attraction to anyone. Some may call themselves are for short. Some demiromantic people use the term preromantic, which describes someone who occasionally feels romantic attraction. However, demiromanticism refers specifically to people who only feel romantic attraction after the development of a deep emotional bond.

The idea of developing romantic attraction towards my partner restarted post my strong bond which I shared with her. I believe she is more romantic than me, and that I could realize in our first meeting itself. When I met her for the first time, my eyes were filled with vermillion which someone put on my forehead. While I was struggling, she passed me a comfort towel and asked me to wipe my eyes. That’s when the “LA LA LA LA LA” music started on the background, and inner Love emojis burster out. I loved the feeling, the warmth it created. The subtle effect of what people call love.

Now, this slowly developed as a bond where we feel romantically attracted to each out. She gave me a space to be gender fluid and never wished that I should go and get flowers for her. I feel heroic when she paints my face and turns me into a drag queen. I feel gestures like planting a plant with her, or she is helping me drape a saree or puts eyeliner for me makes me feels heroic. Its not the masc. vs Femme anymore as somewhere I flow between being masc. and femme at the same time. We enjoy rare things which radiates love for each other and celebrated my demiromantic identity.

A post marriage shoots are always filled with couple holding each other or boy giving flower to the girl. I thought we need a better way to do it blurring the masc.-femme boundaries. It was also the idea of Alekya Grace to capture the essence of raw bond and hence, planned a photoshoot where we Ozzy romance without the gender tags, this is photoshoot is titled DDLJ Demi Drag Love Journey