The South Indian Myth and Folklore in Transgenderism: A Review with the Lens of Mikhail Bakhtin’s Carnivalesque

Abstract

This paper attempts a folkloric study on the South Indian cultural creeds and rituals practiced by the transgender and transvestite people during their annual carnivals in the temple of Koothanadavar which lies in the Koovagam region of Tamil Nadu and, the Kottankulangara Bhagavathi Devi temple in Kerala region. It unravels the unification and identification of gender-benders in spreading the folkloric performances through these ritualistic carnivals nationwide towards social acceptability of their gender and practices through the trope of Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque. Though the members of the community have been spurned for their biological abnormality by their own family and society, they form their own group to share and follow their self-established socio-cultural norms and practices for their consecutive generations. The members never give up their own cultural practices, folk songs, dances and other performances during the Koovagam and Kottankulangara carnivals at any cost. Thus, this paper scrutinizes how the members of transgender and transvestites of Tamil Nadu and Kerala worship these deities during these carnivals in order to receive acceptance and validation in society by following their own rituals and credos which is considered to be unique across the globe and also interprets the hybrid forms of Hindu Gods and Goddesses for understanding the inherent and inevitable biological aberrations in the creation of species.