Koovagam, Tamil Nadu: Koovagam hosts India's biggest transgender festival. As per the 2011 census of India, more than 5 lakh transgenders are living in India. Most of the transgender's livelihood is mainly dependent upon three things begging, offering blessings on auspicious occasions, and Prostitution. When living in such harsh realities Koovagam festival offers transgenders happiness and hope. Through this festival, Hindu religion and tradition have provided transgenders a special place in a society where they are being celebrated and cherished and they challenge the mainstream narrative of the male and female binary in society.
Thousand and lakhs of transgenders from India and outside India gather in Koovagam during 18 days long Koovagam Kuttandavar festival, where they also get a chance of getting married. In this episode, Firstly I will attend the unique beauty pageant contest of transgenders which is known as miss Koovagam. This contest has many similarities to miss India, and Miss World. After this, I will go to Koovagam to attend the unique marriage of Transgender where thousands of transgender get married to lord aravan, Arjun's son.(Story from Mahabharata). The next day as per the Mahabharata story, Aravan will be sacrificed. So every transgender will mourn at common place. They get widowed in one day
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