Piece of War
Debesh Banerjee
Posted: Fri Feb 18 2011, 23:18 hrs
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Piece-of-War/751477/Every April, Priyababu dresses up in all her finery to get married at the gates of the Koothandavar temple in Tamil Nadu. This is part of a ceremony to pay obeisance to Lord Aravan, a character from the Mahabharata. But today, she is decorating floor petals instead at the foot of a peepal tree in one of the lawns of the India Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in Delhi. "The atmosphere is very timid but the feeling of devotion remains the same," quips Priyababu, leader of the Rainbow Transgender group from Chennai. She is performing a ritual that precedes marriage, one among the many from the Koothandavar Festival, held across temples in Tamil Nadu. This is an annual homage to Lord Aravan, the deity for the transgender communities of South India.
