This book describes the 18-day festival in Tamil Nadu which sees thousands of transgender women

Train journeys aren’t always fun, and they’re even less so when you’re travelling in an unreserved compartment packed to capacity on a hot Indian summer day. A couple of hours after we boarded, Manu and I managed to find a seat. We stowed our bags beneath the seat and started surfing the internet for information about the Koovagam festival.

We realised that we would be arriving at the festival on the evening of the 16th day. All sources confirmed that that was when the festival peaked.

The aravanis, which is the Tamil word to usually describe transgender women, arrive in Koovagam in ever-growing numbers from the 14th to the 16th day. Preceding their symbolic wedding to Aravan on the penultimate day, they dance with the flower crown of the deity, which is believed to possess his power. This is a traditional ceremony which the aravanis celebrate by singing their favourite songs.

After the ceremony of adorning the idol is complete and the ritual dance is over, on the day of the wedding, the thali ceremony begins. The thali, a traditional mark of a married woman in Tamil Nadu, is a pendant, usually made of gold or other precious metals, that is tied around the neck. In Koovagam, this takes the form of a thread with a piece of turmeric as the pendant. The priests, representing Aravan, tie the thalis around the necks of all those who wish to marry the deity in the inner sanctum of the temple – including men, in some cases, who have taken certain vows.

The night of the wedding, aravanis can have sex, which is viewed as an act of consummating the wedding. These are nights of uninhibited celebration and the expression of their love for their deity.

As Manu and I shared our notes, to our very great surprise, an old man wearing a red shawl and loose dhoti sitting next to me said in English, “Those who marry Aravan are not described as having sex in any traditional accounts. While the aravanis wear women’s clothes and jewellery, the men who marry Aravan, in fulfilment of vows made for granting their wishes, wear male clothes throughout the ritual.”

“Oh. Avalo iruka! There’s so much more to learn!” I replied. He continued, “Innum iruku, indeed. Early in the morning of the 16th day, it is said that Aravan’s soul is transferred back to his repainted head, and the ritual of opening the god’s eyes is performed by painting the pupils on the head and putting it on the katayam.”

“What is the katayam?” asked Manu.

“Aravan’s head is paraded around the village on a portable platform called a katayam. This is accompanied by two platform chariots, one holding Aravan’s chest plate and epaulettes, without which the festival is considered incomplete, and the other carrying his flower crown.

“The marriages of the aravanis end with the sacrificial offering of roosters on the final day. Aravan’s head is mounted on the post, and his epaulettes and chest plate are fixed to his straw body, which is then garlanded. The figure is paraded through the village, and the ritual re-enactment of his death on the eighth day of the Mahabharata war takes place. At noon, his chariot turns north to face a predesignated area, meant to stand for Kurukshetra, symbolising his arrival onto the battlefield to die at the hands of Alambusha.”

“Are you, by any chance, a priest at the temple, sir?” asked Manu.

The old man laughed and replied, “No, I am just a curious traveller who has come to explore the customs and history of Koovagam, just like you, I suppose. This is my third visit to the festival, and each time, I learn and experience something new. Shall I continue the story, or are you bored?”

We nodded eagerly and so the old man continued weaving the tale for his rapt audience. “After the parade, the vivid garlands are removed from the idol, indicating the stripping away of his flesh and his defeat on the eighth day of the Kurukshetra war. The chariot with the idol then turns towards the location prepared for the mourning rituals, the weeping grounds. The widowed aravanis, with their hair dishevelled and bangles broken, lament the death of their husband as kalappali is performed.”

“What is kalappali?” asked Manu.

“It’s a ritual performed before going into battle to ensure victory. One by one, the garlands from Aravan’s chariot are thrown to the devotees, signifying his gradual loss of vitality. At the weeping ground, the aravanis mourn Aravan’s death by breaking their bangles, beating their breasts and discarding their bridal finery, much like in the legend of Mohini and Krishna. They cut their thalis, which are flung at a post erected for the ceremony. Then they take a bath in a nearby pond and put on white sarees as a mark of their widowhood. In the mid-afternoon, Aravan is stripped to his skeletal straw body. Most aravanis leave by then, and men wedded to Aravan also break their thalis and bangles and perform all the rites of widowhood in front of an image of Aravan. Meanwhile, a storyteller, one who is especially skilled at reciting the Mahabharata, tells the story of the culmination of the war, symbolic of Aravan fulfilling his wish of seeing the war.”

“For how many days do the aravanis remain widows?” asked Manu.

“The aravanis wear white for a month before re-adorning themselves with bangles and coloured saris,” said the old man. After a brief pause, he continued, “At the weeping grounds, a symbolic sacrifice of cooked ‘blood rice’ is distributed in honour of the deceased Aravan. This rice is believed to make childless women conceive. After the death rites at dusk, the chariot is considered a house of death, and the lifeless head is removed from the frame of its skeletal body, covered with a cloth and paraded around the village as though at a funeral. It is then taken to the temple of Kali, where it is revived. In a ceremony called the Natanam Thirumputhal – return dance – the head is once more taken around the village, right until the early hours of the morning. In the evening of the final day, a priest, representing Yudhishthira, crowns Aravan in a ceremony held in the inner sanctum of his temple.”

As the story seemed to wind to a close, the train also began to slow down. We could see yellow Indian Railways signs out of the windows, indicating that the next stop was Viluppuram. We were all relieved to finally arrive in the little town, almost the last stop on our way to Koovagam. Our stiff limbs groaned as we stepped onto the platform: the sweet ache of movement after hours of confinement.

That familiar cocktail of emotions stirred again: terror swirling with joy. The old man walked out of the train and was nowhere to be seen, gone as surely as dust motes in the rays of the sun.

Exiting the station, we clambered onto a local bus packed with pilgrims and rumbled towards Viluppuram’s main bus stop. “The Koovagam celebrations happen at the Koothandavar temple,” a local on the bus explained, wiping the sweat off his face. “Lord Aravan’s shrine is about an hour from here.”

With that new information, it seemed as if a change of plans was imminent. I proposed that we check out the temple before setting our base somewhere. A recce is essential to my process.

“But wasn’t the initial plan to book a room, freshen up and reach Koovagam before daylight vanishes?” replied Manu.

“Yes, but we should go to the temple first.”

“Why?”

“Sunset is approaching, and we should have a look at the temple, the surrounding areas and the locality before we start taking photos in earnest.”

A clearly unhappy Manu remained silent. And it was, paradoxically, because of this resistance that I continued to insist on the new plan. I believe that the decisions that we make from that curious, unknowable blend of courage and madness can carry a person beyond what they believe are their limits. And so, with twilight darkening the skies, we agreed that the temple would be our starting point.

We soon boarded a local bus from Viluppuram, its seats worn smooth by generations of pilgrims, and rumbled into Manapattu, a tiny rail junction connecting to Koovagam. The bus dawdled to a halt in front of a tea shop where a few old men were seated outside.

We ordered some tea and approached the old men to ask about accommodations nearby. One of them replied, “This is a remote village, there are almost no hotels here. You’ll need to go back to Viluppuram.”

Time seemed to come to a standstill. Manu’s gaze was fixed on the old men. When he turned to me, his eyes were blazing with anger. I forced a smile, playing a fool.

“Wipe that smile off your face and at least pretend to care,” he snapped.

Another old man leaned forward to ask if we were here for the festival, and we nodded. “The real ceremonies only start tomorrow – you guys are quite early.”

Suddenly, Manu’s irritation seemed to give way to curiosity. “What happens tomorrow, ayya?” he asked.

The old man combed through his long, white beard with his fingers for a while and then began to elaborate. “The priests conduct the wedding ceremonies, binding Lord Aravan and the aravanis in a sacred union, which is both commenced and ended within a single day. These aravanis, who have long been denied families of their own know at least this – for a few hours, they belong to someone and that someone belongs to them. You’ll see what I mean tomorrow. Their joy cannot be expressed in mere words. They ache for what most of us take for granted: a home, children, the right to form roots and community without hiding.”

Manu and I, along with a few other bystanders, leaned in, listening attentively to the old man.

“Here at Koovagam, those who are afraid to reveal their true selves finally shed their masks. For 18 nights, the thirunangai, transgender women, are accepted for who they are. Some pair off with men from the villages nearby like festival doves, others seek only drunken companionship, and still others want only sexual gratification. But very few people, if any at all, ask them their stories or actually try to understand them. The thirunangai have complete freedom here, and they reclaim their bodies and souls in evenings of wild revelry followed by wilder nights. Indeed, this is one of the most mysterious celebrations on Earth.”

I could already see it in my mind – the riot of colours, the pulsing music and beating drums, the pleasure of documenting unique stories. We thanked the old man for sharing his knowledge. His eyes crinkled as he left us with one final thought: “Have a little faith. There’s magic in the night, and if you only believe, you’ll find magic everywhere.”

Excerpted with permission from Souls of Someone: Myth, Magic and Mourning in Koovagam, Shino Cherian, HarperCollins India.