Aditya Madiraju on celebrating Diwali, collaboration with ABH Lip Kits

Indian-born content creator and makeup artist Aditya Madiraju looks back on his childhood memories Diwali Please. Although the festivities typically vary from region to region and family to family, Madiraju celebrated with larger than life feasts, traditional food at every turn, and family and friends dressed to the nines, donning clothes, jewelry and makeup for the highest forms of beauty.

Diwali was the only time he remembered his late mother wearing makeup. “During Diwali, my mother would take red lipstick, put it on her lips, dab some on her fingers and then apply it on her cheeks. Like other married women in India, she also took some of the red and applied it on her lips.” her forehead,” says Madiraju.

Growing up in India, Madiraju often applied makeup to his mother and cousins, especially during Diwali, leading others to label him as “gay” even though he had not yet defined his own sexuality. “You couldn’t really figure it out because no one understood it,” he says. “You didn’t even understand it yourself, but then you had a passion for art and makeup, and people were saying things about you and not knowing what to do with them.”

There’s a lot of pain in growing up in the closet and not understanding what you’re going through and why some traditions are hard to celebrate, but Diwali was this safe time of year.

Despite the judgment of others and the stigma surrounding his makeup practice, Madiraju’s parents never stopped him from exploring makeup because he says they saw it as ‘art’ too. This year, as Diwali approached, Madiraju sought to honor both his late mother and his queer, South Asian identity by creating two lip kits that epitomize Diwali with beauty brand Anastasia Beverly Hills.

“It has always been a dream of mine to do a brand collaboration that is more than just a brand deal, but is a piece of my identity, with my name on it, created through my own idea and execution,” says Madiraju. “I’m such a fan of Anastasia Beverly Hills and I reached out to them and asked if they would be open to me creating two Diwali-inspired lip kits and they gave me complete freedom to do that.”

For Madiraju, Diwali was the perfect holiday to launch this line, as the Hindu festival of lights aims to embody love and goodness above all else. “Diwali is all about love and light. There is a lot of pain when you grow up in the closet and you don’t understand what you are going through and why some traditions are hard to celebrate, but Diwali was this safe time of year because everyone just had love ” says Madiraju. As Madiraju explains, these lip kits are like love letters to fellow queer South Asians who may have never felt like they could combine their South Asian pride with their queer identity.

The lip kits, which each contain a bundle of four lip products, have been mentioned Gulab kiss And Spicy Chai to pay tribute to the holiday. In Hindi, gulab means rose, and Madiraju wanted to build a lip kit that embodied the love felt between family and friends during Diwali. Second, he says chai cannot be separated from Indian identity because “we have about four cups a day,” Madiraju jokes. For this bundle, he has adapted a nude-chocolate lip combo that can easily be paired with many types of Diwali looks.

This year, Madiraju is observing Diwali on October 31 at his mother-in-law’s house. The content creator, who currently lives in New Jersey with husband Amit Shah and their 17-month-old daughter, says Diwali celebrations are hosted by different family members each year. “It will actually be a small gala,” says Madiraju, who describes his husband’s side of the family as “glamorous”. “We all cook together, get ready together, eat together and then chai.”

While Madiraju will always celebrate Diwali in large groups with beautiful clothes and endless cups of chai, he also wants to start new traditions by introducing his daughter to a different Diwali every year.

“All the traditions I learned growing up were for heterosexual couples. There’s a man, there’s a woman, they have a child and they give them values ​​from both sides,” says Madiraju. “I want new traditions to be created. I want queer people to say I love the culture I grew up with, but I can add something special to it. It can be celebrating Diwali with an inclusive community or it can be as simple as like dressing the way you want or wearing the makeup you want despite your gender or sexuality. This holiday should be for everyone.”

Shahamat Uddin is a freelance writer largely covering queer and South Asian issues, as well as related lifestyle topics and entertainment. His family is from Sylhet, Bangladesh, but after growing up in Roswell, Georgia, he now lives in Brooklyn with his cat Butter. Outside of PS, he also has bylines in Teen Vogue, Vogue, Vogue India, New York Magazine, Them, The Nation and more.