AIDS initiative takes root at transgender festival

By Papri Sri Raman, Indo-Asian News service May 3, 2007, 11:22 GMT

Koovagam (Tamil Nadu), May 3 (IANS) At a small temple in rural Tamil Nadu where a transgender festival is on in full swing, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has begun a major initiative for healthy sexual practices.

At least 300,000 trans-genders, homosexuals and local villagers gathered here to take part in this annual two-day festival this week to worship local deity Koothandavar.

This year, there were Australian, Austrian, Malysian, French, British and American trans-genders attending the fest, which fell on Chaitra Poornima on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A winding tarred road passing through sugarcane fields, 20 km from Villupuram town, brings international media every year to Koovagam village, which just for these 24 hours becomes host to the largest gathering of trans-genders in the world.

Said photographer Sreeram Selvaraj, who first came to this festival 10 years ago: 'Earlier the festival drew a smaller crowd as it was thought a little unsafe for ordinary people. Now you can even see foreigners crowding here.'

Diepirye S. Kuku Siemon, an Afro-American from Kentucky, is impressed that there is such an exclusive festival in India representing all religious faiths. 'I have been here for two days and the camaraderie is amazing,' she said.

Ponni, another trans-gender, said: 'I am a man in my working life. I work for an advocacy NGO and can now lead a decent life. Only for this one night, I am dressed as a woman and dance for the lord.

'But I do not want more and more young people becoming aravanis (as trans-genders in Tamil Nadu are called),' Ponni told IANS.

The state government provides electricity at the temple site while special state transport buses ferry the crowds to and fro By 9 p.m., the traffic is bumper-to-bumper - and just moving one way to Koovagam.

The buses unload the visitors in a barren ground with no shed, no provision for water and no public toilets and no resting places. Everyone walks about a kilometre to the temple. Temple authorities and the local government have this year begun extracting Rs. 10 as entry fee per person.

Villagers come with huge jackfruits on their heads and hens tucked under their arms to offer to the deity. They set up small eateries, selling sambar and rice with poppadams. They sell balloons and bangles and flowers, 'mangal sutra', turmeric, vermilion and coconut, all required for the wedding to the deity.

Bonfires spring up where groups of people of various genders and sexual inclinations cook their dinner on the edges of the fields.

A decked up Bharati Kannamma and her partner Aruna are the photographers' favourites. The Gates Foundation-funded Tamil Nadu Aids Initiative (TAI) has included them as advocacy workers.

Hariharan, an IT expert and a community adviser for TAI, is an MSM (men who have sex with men) who has this year accompanied his friend 'Pooja' to the temple. 'She wanted to get a 'thali' (a pendant signifying married status) tied at the temple,' he said.

'As the night progresses, the cane fields become zones of high sexual activity. This is the high-risk behaviour we want to address,' said an AIDS awareness activist.

The Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative has been working with the aravani community through its NGO partners like the South India Positive Network for disease prevention.

At the Koovagam festival, TAI organised a beauty contest, won by 27-year-old Padmini from Coimbatore who was crowned 'Rani Aravani'. The Rotary Club organised the 'Miss Koovagam' contest, won this year by Rasiga from Salem.

TAI Kavya, a performance troupe, this year put up a stage and performed all-night dances, songs and plays with messages of safe sex for the community.

'The idea is to draw the attention of this huge gathering to their high-risk behaviour and to reduce the vulgarity that was once associated with this event,' said Vishnu Kumar, an activist.

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service