TRANSGENDER PHOTOGRAPHS PUBLISHED

The dimly lit corridors of the Arcot Hotel are rank with the smell of sweat, cigarettes and stale beer. The hallways ring with loud chatter, raucous laughter and the occasional scream. The summer heat is sweltering. Half-open doors reveal grungy rooms crowded with large women in various stages of undress. Pink petticoats, padded bras, hair extensions, sequined saris, miniskirts – some on, some off. Out in the passageways, a few men hang about, hungrily eyeing the women who stride out of the rooms. One grabs at Kalki as she walks past, dressed in a modest salwaar-kameez, her glossy hair pulled back in a ponytail. She turns and speaks to him softly before she gently extricates herself and moves on. The man suddenly seems reduced, almost bashful. The hunter looks hunted. But this isn’t surprising. For Kalki Subramaniam isn’t quite who she seems. Out here, all definitions, all identities, are fluid. The only certainty is that in this packed hotel I’m the only naturally born woman. The rest are aravanis, kothis and panthis (transgenders, feminine homosexuals and their seemingly straight male clients).

This is Maureen Nandini Mitra‘s introduction to her fascinating story on the lives of south India’s transexual Aravani community, recently published alongside my photographs in Caravan magazine.

Defined by their sexual-orientation, Aravanis are rarely accepted by India’s largely conservative society. As a consequence, many are tormented by the disapproving gaze of others and suffer a lonely existence from which they seldom find solace. The transgender gathering I photographed in the Tamil town of Koovagam is one occasion when Aravanis are able to emerge and take centre-stage – if only for a few short days a year.

Unlike the wider Indian gay community I’ve written about here, I found the Aravanis I met in Koovagam and Chennai to be a rather self-absorbed lot. This need to express individual anguish is an understandable reaction when shunned by wider society.

Kavia, an Aravani shares a cigarette with some boys while she looks for sex works on the streets of Chennai...India's transexual community has a recorded history of more than four thousand years. Many consider the The Third Sex, also known as Aravanis, to posses special powers allowing them to determine the fate of others. As such, they are not only revered but despised and feared too. Resigned to the fringes of society, segregated and excluded from most occupations, many Aravanis are forced to turn to begging and sex work in order to earn a living. ..The annual transgender festival in the village of Koovagam, near Vilappuram, offers an escape from this often desolate existence. For some, the week-long partying and frenetic sex trade that culminates in the Koovagam festival is about fulfilling lustful desires. For others, the gathering provides a chance for transgenders to bond, share experiences, join the wider homosexual gay-community and coordinate their campaign for recognition and tackle the challenge of HIV/AIDS. ..It is the Indian state of Tamil Nadu that the eighty-thousand-strong Aravani community has made advances in their fight for rights. In 2009, the Tamil Nadu state government began providing sex-change surgery free of cost. The state has also offers special third-gender ration cards, passports and reserved seats in colleges. And 2008 the launch of Ippudikku Rose, a Tamil talk-show fronted by India's first transgender TV-host and the release of a mainstream Tamil film staring an Aravani in the lead-role. ..These advances clearly signal a victory for south India's transgenders, but they have also exposed deep divisions within the community. There is a very real gulf that separates the majority poor from their potentially influential but often reticent, upper-class sisters. ..Photo: Tom Pietrasik.Chennai, Tamil Nadu. India.May 2009 (Tom Pietrasik)An Aravani sex-worker shares a cigarette with some boys while looking for clients in central Chennai. Denied the opportunity to undertake regular jobs, many Aravani’s are forced into selling sex to earn a living. Chennai, India ©Tom Pietrasik 2009

So, while India’s wider gay community who have begun to confront discrimination with a collective campaign for rights and recognition, Aravanis continue to define their struggle in very personal terms. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is chat-show host Rose Venkatesan who describes herself as an transgender celebrity.

When Maureen and I approached Rose for an interview, she was being trailed by an American TV crew who were profiling her for a documentary series. Rose was brought up in an upper middle-class Tamil household and, having studied for a degree in the US, we had hoped that she might have offered us an informed and articulate perspective on the transgender experience in India.

Instead Rose insisted that her presence in our article would reap us financial reward for which she must be compensated. She demanded several hundred dollars. Suffice to say, we didn’t pay and ultimately neither her wit nor wisdom – nor her portrait – graced Caravan’s pages.

An Aravani takes a wash before heading out to look for sex works on the streets of Chennai...India's transexual community has a recorded history of more than four thousand years. Many consider the The Third Sex, also known as Aravanis, to posses special powers allowing them to determine the fate of others. As such, they are not only revered but despised and feared too. Resigned to the fringes of society, segregated and excluded from most occupations, many Aravanis are forced to turn to begging and sex work in order to earn a living. ..The annual transgender festival in the village of Koovagam, near Vilappuram, offers an escape from this often desolate existence. For some, the week-long partying and frenetic sex trade that culminates in the Koovagam festival is about fulfilling lustful desires. For others, the gathering provides a chance for transgenders to bond, share experiences, join the wider homosexual gay-community and coordinate their campaign for recognition and tackle the challenge of HIV/AIDS. ..It is the Indian state of Tamil Nadu that the eighty-thousand-strong Aravani community has made advances in their fight for rights. In 2009, the Tamil Nadu state government began providing sex-change surgery free of cost. The state has also offers special third-gender ration cards, passports and reserved seats in colleges. And 2008 the launch of Ippudikku Rose, a Tamil talk-show fronted by India's first transgender TV-host and the release of a mainstream Tamil film staring an Aravani in the lead-role. ..These advances clearly signal a victory for south India's transgenders, but they have also exposed deep divisions within the community. There is a very real gulf that separates the majority poor from their potentially influential but often reticent, upper-class sisters. ..Photo: Tom Pietrasik.Chennai, Tamil Nadu. India.May 2009 (Tom Pietrasik)