The festival of Chamayavilakku at the Kottankulangara Sree Devi Temple in Kollam, Kerala is one of the most wonderful event observed for 10-12 days in the month of March.
However, the most interesting part of the festival is that men adorn their body with female attire, jewellery, jasmine flowers, makeup and even shave their moustache to look like women on the lost day of the festival.
While men are so proud of their masculinity that it hard for them to ever dress up as woman do, in Kerala, the impossible gets possible even if for a day every year, for the Chamayavilakku festival.
Even the transgender community participates in the fest with full enthusiasm.
According to one of the local beliefs surrounding the existence of the temple, a group of cowherd boys, dressed as girls, used to play around a stone, which they considered as God. To their surprise, one day, the Goddess herself appeared before them from the stone. Soon, the news of this incident spread in the village, and a temple was erected to enshrine the stone, considering it divine will. That is how, perhaps, the tradition of men dressing themselves in female attire took birth. Now, men of all ages, throng the temple each year in womanly garb, holding chamayavilakku (a lamp lit up with five wicks) in order to please the presiding deity and earn her favour.
