KALLAKURICHI/VILLUPURAM: The Miss Koovagam transgender beauty pageant resumed on Tuesday after it was stopped due to rains the previous night. A Niranjana (25), a commerce graduate, won the title while M Disha (24), a hotel management graduate, was the runner-up and K Sadhana the second runner-up. The winners were felicitated by seniors in the South Indian Transgender Association.
“I support all transwomen who would like to excel in the modelling industry. I also demand the state government to provide special reservations for transgender people in all government jobs, so that our livelihoods will be more dignified,” Niranjana told TNIE. She further insisted that she will work towards creating a secure future for young transgender people in the state and setting up a welfare mission for the elders.
Thousands of transgender people gathered at the Koothandavar temple at Koovagam village in Kallakurichi district to get married to the temple deity Lord Aravan. The ritual is an annual affair where members of the community flock from across the country to pay their religious rites and embrace their womanhood, sources said.
Priests at the temple tie the holy knot to all the transwomen coming there and pronounce them married to a man for that day. The next day is considered to be the death of Lord Aravan and the transwomen embrace widowhood with lamenting and grief.
The sacrifice that brought victory to the Pandavas
The ritual traces back to a story told in the epic mythology Mahabharatha, in which Aravan the son of Pandava warrior Arjuna participated in the Kurukshetra war with his father and the other Pandavas. At the end of the war, a human sacrifice to Goddess Kali was believed to bring victory to the Pandavas and so Aravan gave himself up for the sacrifice. In order to be entitled to right of cremation and funerary offerings, Aravan needed to be married before the sacrifice.
As women wanted to marry him as widowhood became obvious, Lord Krishna took on a female avatar, called Mohini, and married Aravan.