Koovagam Festival
Transgenders, popularly known as ‘aravanis’, are in the midst of celebrating the 18-day-long Koovagam festival, an annual event that attracts their kind from abroad, including Singapore and Malaysia, and from across the country, including Delhi, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Their focal point during the fete is Koovagam temple, where the presiding deity is Aravan, to whom the ‘aravanis’ will get figuratively wedded on Tuesday night. During the Mahabharata war, Arjuna, a past master in archery, killed Aravan with the prowess of his bow and arrow. Therefore, it literally meant that those ‘aravanis’ wedded to Aravan were rendered widows overnight.