Kumar (drag Queen) - Early Life

Early Life

Kumar was born on 10 August, 1968, to a South Indian father from Madras and a Singaporean mother. Kumar’s father, Chinna Dorai, had arrived in Singapore in the mid-1960s and worked as a caretaker for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). When Kumar was four, his parents divorced; he was raised by his mother’s younger sister, Rani Vyarakannoo, a policewoman, who eventually became his step-mother.

Kumar grew up in a terrace house on Paterson Road with his parents, four siblings – three older sisters and a younger brother, and six dogs. He went to Cairnhill and Selegie Primary schools and later attended Monk’s Hill Secondary School. As a child, he aspired to be a Bharathanatyam (classical dance form from Tamil Nadu) dancer and joined the Indian Dance Society in his secondary school. After his O levels, Kumar worked for six months as a cashier at a 7-Eleven outlet before enlisting for his National Service where he served as a combat signaller in the army and held the record for one of the fastest times in his cohort for the completion of the 2.4km run.

When he was ten, Kumar was molested by a family friend – an incident which he never shies away from in his interviews with the press, and would later become fodder for his first solo stage show. Kumar released his biography, Kumar: From Rags To Drag, to much fanfare on 13 September, 2011, in celebration of his 20 years in show business. The book’s launch was also a public coming-out for Kumar, which makes him the only openly-gay public figure in Singapore, and his revelation “of significance”