Getting ready with the dolls at the It Ball

It’s a hot Saturday night in Mumbai when the mezzanine of AntiSocial in Lower Parel, Mumbai, has transformed into a dressing room. Members of the House of Luna—the family mothered by Glorious Luna—and their friends are getting ready shoulder to shoulder under bright lights and borrowed mirrors. “This year’s edition was conceived as an homage to all the trans and non-binary people who came before us and made it somewhat easier for us,” Luna says. “It’s an exaggerated expression of queer joy, fantasy, and an escape from the real world, which is terrible for minorities, especially the transgender community in India after the Trans Bill.” Roughly two hours until showtime, when Luna and her chosen family will descend the staircase to perform their acts in front of a crowd of about 500 people, the room is in a state of glorious disarray.

Makeup kits are open on every available surface. Suitcases sit underneath them, spilling out flashes of satin, sequin, and colour. A plastic horse head leans against a wall, a gigantic apple prop waits in a box in the middle of the room, and a curling tong—strategically placed out of everyone’s way under a table—is heating up. It may sound chaotic, but everyone knows exactly what they’re doing and what belongs to whom, what needs to be passed across, held down, glued on, zipped up or found immediately.

“Who has my pink Huda Beauty palette? If I come around and find it in anyone’s kit…,” Luna stands up from her seat next to her sister DeeDee and calls out across the room. For a second, every brush stops mid-air as people peer into their kits. Someone screams back, “Is it this?” Luna’s responds with “Yes bitch!” (affectionately) before the palette exchanges hands until it reaches its rightful owner.

Backstage, according to Luna, is always “a fucking mess, to be honest”. She laughs as she describes the pre-show atmosphere: “Everybody is hyper and screaming: ‘Oh my God, do you have brown kajal? I forgot mine. I forgot setting spray. Give me this, give me that.’ And then, in between, we’ll have a tea break or a pee break, and all the queens get ready together. So, it almost becomes a community-building workshop.”

In one corner, Gaga, sitting in a pink choli, takes a look in the mirror before putting her bajubandhs on. Next to her, Krishnangi Bharali—who goes by Krisha—is bending over backwards on her chair with a mirror in one hand trying to catch the light while blending in her concealer with the other. Tonight, her hair is in pigtails adorned with satin bows. “These are extensions,” she explains when I compliment her long, swishing braids. When I ask her if she’s excited, she smiles before admitting, “I’m a little nervous,” and then turns her focus back to prepping her eyes.

A few minutes later, model Tarun Panwar hops over and asks her, “Should I wear makeup too?” and Krisha immediately starts handing him options for foundation. On the other side of the room, Nin Kala’s face is lit up with a hand mirror with LED lights as she carefully applies a magenta liquid lipstick. Around her, everyone is focused on the practical work of transformation: checking lashes, sharing products, asking for opinions, and making space.

Tonight’s theme? ‘Valley of the Dolls’, where everyone in attendance has been instructed to show up dressed as the doll they always saw themselves as. “Doll is a word used to describe transgender women,” Luna explains. “There’s the film Valley of the Dolls, of course, which is about three women hustling, fame, and society—but it also nods to our childhoods and the dolls so many of us couldn’t play with because we grew up in such a binary world. The theme is almost a challenge: to become a child again and to become a doll again.” It’s a prompt that leaves plenty of room for both fantasy and autobiography. Here in the dressing room, before the performances begin, the theme appears in fragments: bows, crinoline, a wig being curled into shape.

“I keep telling my friends it’s ironic that it feels like a shaadi ka ghar every time, but nobody’s getting married because we’re not allowed,” Luna says. “Not that I’m pro-marriage, but aesthetically it does feel like that.”

By 9:30 pm, Tarun is the first to walk out the room in a sequinned gold hooded onesie and a construction-worker puppet on his left hand. Inside, Luna, her makeup done and hair pulled back, looks lovely in a silky red robe as she records bytes for social media. Nin Kala, having just finished her makeup, sits in the centre of the room while her blonde tresses are curled before being pinned into an updo.

I make my way downstairs just as the room begins to shift from makeup to costume. Below, the club is filling up and getting louder. Attendees are grabbing drinks, taking out their phones, and pressing toward the runway in the middle of the room in anticipation of the show. Upstairs, the final spell is being cast. After the last looks are taken, everyone gathers around in a circle, holds hands, and does a community chant.

At 10:45, Glorious Luna takes the stage with her daughters Pratul, Krishi, Krisha, and Sunil as Florence + The Machine’s ‘Cosmic Love’ blares out of the speakers. She walks down the ramp, off the stage, parting the crowd to come face to face with a long snake puppet that takes up the length of the room. Rose petals fall from the sky as she slays the monster with a sword. It is theatrical, strange, and fantastical—a little like watching Alice take on the Jabberwocky in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

The performance is inspired by Eve, whom Luna calls “the first OG doll”. “I wanted to give her a queer twist and dress as a rebellious Eve,” she says. “We’ve been taught that Eve ate the apple first and she’s always blamed for convincing Adam to eat it, so in my act I don’t eat the apple. I drop it. And when the snake comes back to convince me, I defeat it.” Her look tonight borrows from the iconic Yves Saint Laurent floral dress worn by Laetitia Casta, reimagined with orchids.

Next, DeeDee walks in in a sequinned blue robe that she promptly takes off mid-runway to reveal a bejewelled bra and miniskirt set. Once on stage, she places a candelabra on her head, and the crowd goes wild once again. “For lack of a better word, she’s a cunt. I think she’s my favourite drag queen,” Luna gushes. Gaga arrives by horse—the same prop that had been leaning against the wall upstairs—and the room claps and cheers as she twirls onstage in her ghungat. She holds up a sheet that reads ‘REJECT TRANS BILL’ before shredding it and throwing it in the air. The whole room erupts into applause once again.

After that, Nin Kala—dressed as a literal doll—steps up onto a turntable and comes alive. Krisha performs to ‘Art’ by Tyla in a feathered corset, Krishi channels Odette from Swan Lake, and Sunil pays homage to his roots in drag. In the crowd, people flick their hand fans open and shut in approval.

More than looking good or performing well, Luna says the point of the ball is to create an immersive world. “We see everything from a cinematic lens,” she says. “Like, I love this Renaissance painting—how do we make this painting come alive?” The answer, at the It Ball, is through costume, choreography, lights, props, and a room full of people willing to believe in the world being built in front of them.

Finally, Pratul, the host for the night, descends the staircase and announces the contests are about to begin. He introduces the judges: trans activist and advocate Feroza Syed, actor Priyanka Bose, Dirty founder Kshitij Kankaria, Indian drag legend Jiya Labeija, and makeup artist Elton J Fernandez—all dressed to the nines. One by one, participants line up at the back of the room and wait for their turn to revel in the limelight and receive scores that range from “Chop” to 10. The winners are awarded trophies, makeup goodies from Mokae, and cash prizes.

“We are often stripped of our freedom, and the whole idea of the ball is to be free,” Luna says. “It sounds cheesy, but if you’re with us on that wavelength, the freedom is almost spiritual. It’s like gender doesn’t exist here. Of course, there are expressions of gender, but the binary system of what a woman is supposed to be or what a man is supposed to be—all of that just doesn’t exist. That’s the magical thing about the ball. It’s almost like a liminal space and a destination.”

There are chops, of course. There are 10s too. But long before the scores are called, the night has already made its point. Here, everyone isn’t just dressed as the doll they had once seen themselves as. They were being seen that way too.