When the goddess demands cross dressing

March 03, 2013
Mumbai
Devdutt Pattanaik

http://www.mid-day.com/columnists/2013/mar/030313-opinion-devdutt-pattanaik-when-the-goddess-demands-cross-dressing.htm

Once a year, at the temple in Kottankulangara in Kerala, at Chavara, near Kollam, hundreds of men dress up as women and worship the Goddess Bhagavathy with lamps. This unique ritual is called 'Chamaya Vilakku' (make-up lamp), and the men come to the temple at night in a long procession with lighted lamps in their hands. The ritual occurs during March-April each year.

The story goes that a group of cowherds found a rock in the forest that oozed blood. They realised it was a rock containing the power of the Goddess. When one of them touched it, he burst into flames and was reduced to ashes.  Clearly only a woman could pick it up for the Goddess preferred priestesses over priests. But as there was no woman in the vicinity, and the boys felt such a powerful stone should not go unattended for long, they dressed as women and approached it. This time, no one got hurt. The Goddess enjoyed the men expressing their feminine side.

She blessed them. In memory of that event, to get blessingsof the Goddess, even today, on a particular day, men dress as women and offer lamps, incense and flowers to the Goddess. These men are not cross-dressing transgendered homosexuals. In fact, many go to the temple in the company of their wives, sisters and mothers who help dress them up. It is all done matter-of-factly, though many enjoy the day of liberation from the burden of machismo.

Quote from: Shana Z on March 04, 2013, 02:55:57 PM
These men are not cross-dressing transgendered homosexuals.

As though that wasn't already obvious... 

Still, nice story. 

Quote from: DianaP on March 04, 2013, 03:08:16 PM
As though that wasn't already obvious... 

Still, nice story. 

Ya what's a crossdressing transgender homosexual? Isn't that like what hides under the beds of naughty Christian children?

Just to clarify, many Hindu men do this as a way of celebrating the local goddess of the area (in this instance, Bhagavati), and do this only once a year. Most of these men are straight, cis-gendered men. A smaller minority may actually be cis-gendered homosexual men who do enjoy cross-dressing, and even smaller still would be the transgender community with transgender women.

Of these three, the latter two have a difficult time in India, and it's festivals like these that help such people cope with the strictures of Indian cultural perceptions.