God’s Brothel Brides

In the days leading up to the full moon in the Tamil month of Chaitra, thousands of hijras converge on the south Indian town of Villupuram in anticipation of their ritual marriage to the Hindu god Aravan.Neither male nor female, the hijras are India's third sex - eunuchs, hermaphrodites and transsexuals.For serveral days most of Villupuram's hotels are completely booked out by hijras.Hijras constitute a distinct caste in India - with documented origins reaching back at least two and a half thousand years.Ostracized by society, most hijras belong to clans or "houses" and live together with other hijras as "families."Each hijra "house" is organized according to a strict hierarchy, with an older hijra, called a "guru," heading the organization.Along with the hijras, throngs of cross-dressers arrive in Villupuram. Unlike the hijras, who constitute a caste apart, the cross-dressers are typically married family men who sneak away to Villupuram, which offers them a rare chance to express this usually secret and suppressed side of their personalities.What draws the hijras to Villupuram is a tradition with origins in the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata. A prophecy foretold that in a primeval battle between good and evil, good would prevail only if the ancient Pandava clan sacrificed to God a perfect male from amongst themselves.The virgin Pandava prince Aravan offered to die if he be allowed to spend one night as a married man. Since no king would give a daughter in marriage only to have her widowed the following day, the Hindu god Krishna took the form of a woman and married Aravan. On the morning after their wedding night Aravan was beheaded and deified.Many hijras identify themselves with the female form Krishna took when he married Prince Aravan, and they earn a living by blessing people - especially at weddings and child births.Hijras also earn money from dancing and begging.Increasingly, however, many hijras are turning to sex work as a means of livelihood.A hijra waiting on the streets of Villupuram for clients.A hijra with a client.Hijra waiting.A hijra out for the night.A hijra out for the night.Hijras in front of a bar waiting for clients.A hijra in Villupuram.A hijra leads a man up to her room.Hijra and client.Hijra and client.It is rare to see an old hijra. The HIV infection rate amongst hijras is said to approach fifty percent.After a few days' partying and working in Villupuram, on a date determined by astrologers, the hijras proceed to the small village of Koovagam for their ritual wedding with the Hindu god Aravan, whose effigy, garlanded with flowers, is paraded around the village.Inside a dark, claustrophobic, steaming hot Hindu temple the hijras stand demurely waiting to be attended to by the priests.As each hijra bows down, a temple priest ties a sacred thread around her neck, symbolizing her marriage union with the Hindu god Aravan.A similar sacred thread is tied around each hijra's wrist as a mark of her marriage.A hijra bows to receive the sacred thread signifying her marriage to Aravan.After their marriage the hirjas proceed to the temple's sanctum sanctorum to bring offerings of coconuts, bananas, jasmine flowers and camphor to the idol of their husband - the Hindu god Aravan.At night hijras celebrate their wedding, with dancing in front of the temple and later with an orgy that takes place in the dark fields surrounding the village.But as prophesied, the marriage proves short-lived. The day after the wedding, Aravan's effigy is beheaded and set aflame. A Hindu priest cuts the sacred thread that marked each hijra as a married woman, and the hijras beat their chests and wail for their deceased husband.In Hindu culture glass bangles are one of the marks of a married woman. And just as any Hindu woman will break her bangles upon becoming a widow, so too a temple priest breaks the bangles of the hijras over whose wedding he presided just the previous day.Hijras cry for the god Aravan - their departed husband.A hijra dressed in a white sari - the traditional Hindu color of mourning.Broken bangles, severed sacred threads, and trampled garlands mark the end of the hijras' marriage to Aravan.