Book Excerpt: The Tree, the Well & the Drag Queen by Salini Vineeth (Red River Story, 2025)

Read an exclusive excerpt from The Tree, the Well & the Drag Queen by Salini Vineeth (Red River Story, 2025)

I started by taming my eyebrows. My bushy eyebrows weren’t suitable for the soft look I was going for that day. Even after three coats of Elmer’s X-Treme glue, my adamant brows still stood up like bullies. I wished I could shave them off like some queens at the Studio did. But unlike them, I wasn’t free. I wore makeup during the night and a mask during the day, the mask of a 27-year-old male, just the way the world liked it.

On the weekdays, I was a well-groomed office boy in my crisp, sky-blue shirt, navy-blue trousers, shining shoes, and a mop of wavy hair oiled and combed into a submissive side partition, hiding my undercut bob. Every morning, the supervisor gathered us office boys around and examined us from head to toe, ensuring we all looked the same, like a bunch of pleasant robots.

Once, on a Monday morning, I had forgotten to rub off the nail polish from the previous night’s makeup. During the roll call, the supervisor glanced at my neon-red nails. ‘What shit is this?’ he roared. The gypsum walls of the supply room trembled.

‘My friends… they were drunk and did this. I didn’t know. I am sorry,’ I muttered, my eyes fixed on a coffee stain on the carpet.

‘It’s vulgar. You know what kind of men paint their nails?’ he asked and spat out a word I had heard so many times in my life.

I imagined appearing on the roll call without my eyebrows. My supervisor would fire me on the spot, or maybe he would get a heart attack even before he could fire me. When would I be free to paint my nails or shave my brows? Maybe Sashay Studio would open a way for me. It would let me be the person I really was. Neither man, nor woman. Nor anything in between.

Ok, focus on the brows now! I warned myself, one eye on the alarm clock. Another coat of glue and my brows finally retreated into my forehead. I dabbed the primer all over my face and followed it with the foundation. Then, I picked up the bronze contour stick.

Today was the retro night at Sashay Studio, and I would be lip-syncing to Dum Maro Dum. I first heard that song when I was a teenager, back in my village. Even though I didn’t understand a word of it, I loved its lazy, intoxicating rhythm. I would hum it, standing in front of Amma’s mirror, wearing her yellow chiffon sari, its softness caressing my thin limbs, its pallu slipping off my silky hair. And then… the bangs on the door, Appa’s reddened face, the terrifying vibrance of the mandala, the smell of burning camphor, the exorcist’s cane coming down my back with a sharp whistle, my body shrinking to a bundle of pain and shame on the mandala floor.

My fingers shook, and the contour stick slipped. I froze in front of the mirror, staring into the depths of my fear-stricken eyes. Everything else in the mirror vanished, just the eyes remained. Two black vortexes in a white ocean, whirling in fear and pain.

A few minutes passed. Then, I saw a pair of green eyes, placid like a lake, staring back at me from the mirror. That gaze descended onto me like a bolt of lightning, burning my fear into ashes.

Nina was finally here.

What have you done with your face? Nina asked, seizing control.

I… I had that dream again. I don’t know what to do.

Again? Okay, we’ll deal with it later. Let’s beat this face for the gig now. Hmm… Let me see. I think a Zeenat Aman vibe will slay the retro night. Yay or nay? she asked.

Yeah, whatever you like, I said.

Cheer up, you’ll werk this look! Nina smiled as she started correcting the stray contour lines on my face. With a few deft strokes of the sponge, she blended them into the foundation. For the next hour, I surrendered myself to Nina.

Slay! Nina admired the sculpted face in the mirror and moved on to my eyes. She applied a soft layer of kajal on the lower lid and a thick liquid eyeliner on the upper. She drew a bold eyebrow, just like Zeenat Aman’s. Then she attached a pair of long eyelashes and chose a bronze eyeshadow, finishing the look with a vanilla custard nude lipstick.

I wore breast and hip pads and slipped into a sequin gown. A pair of red peep-toe heels completed the look.

Aila! I almost forgot. Nina opened the cupboard and picked up a pair of orange-tinted sunglasses I had bought at a bargain on Fashion Street. There you go! Zeenat Aman. Nina blew a kiss into the mirror, laughing. That laughter, like pearls pouring into a glass box, dissolved my worries. What would I do without Nina?

Excerpted with permission from the author Salini Vineeth and the publisher of The Tree, The Well and the Drag Queen (Red River Press, 2025).

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About the Book

A Dream. A Threat

A Mumbai-based drag queen must return to their ancestral village to confront an uncanny opponent: A demonic jackfruit tree. Centuries ago, a man and a woman in search of an elusive treasure fall into the servitude of a dark force that transmogrifies into a gigantic jackfruit Tree. Generation after generation, their descendants serve the Tree. It’s a vicious cycle of greed and cowardice. And then, a voice of dissent. A descendant defies the gender, familial, and social expectations. They manage to break free and build an authentic life, far away from the Tree’s malevolent gaze. But then, they realise that the Tree still holds the reins of their destiny. Will the drag queen defeat the Tree and break the vicious cycle of servitude? Will they claim absolute freedom?

About the Author

Salini Vineeth is a fiction writer and translator. She is an alumnus of BITS Pilani and worked as an engineer for ten years before moving to full-time writing in 2019. Since then, she has published six books. Her latest book, The Tree, the Well & the Drag Queen, was published in 2026 by Red River Story. Her other books include Lost Edges (novel), Magic Square (novella), Everyday People (short-story collection), and travel guides to Hampi and Badami. She has also translated four books from English to Malayalam.

She is the fiction editor of Mean Pepper Vine, a quarterly literary magazine. Her flash fiction, Blossom Shower, was a winner of the MyStory contest by Mumbai LitFest 2025. Her short story, The Diamond Needle, won a special mention at the BWW RK Anand Prize in 2024. She won the Orange Flower Award for Humour in 2023. Her short story collection, Everyday People, was a finalist in the 2019 Amazon Pen to Publish contest. She won the eShe short story contests in 2019 and 2020. Her stories have appeared in magazines like Out of Print, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Bangalore Review, Kitaab International, and The Bombay Review, among others.

Author website: https://salinivineeth.in/

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