We’ve sometimes blogged about the Pakistani TV host, Begum Nawazish Ali, a drag queen who hosts a variety show on Pakistani TV.

Now Tamil TV (thanks, Shalini and Literary Safari) will have something similar, in Rose Venkatesan, who is not merely in drag for the TV show, but actually transgendered (meaning, she identifies as a woman socially):

“The sari is the most flattering garment,” he added, as he touched up her makeup minutes before the cameras started rolling. “It disguises manly shoulders, takes attention away from a masculine neck.”

A complex procedure even for experienced hands, the process of tying a sari is particularly hard for Rose, who was raised as a boy, and used to be known as Ramesh Venkatesan. Her mother never taught her the skill and refuses to see her wear one. Even so, the outcome was flawless.

When it is broadcast on Vijay television to an audience of up to 64 million people in the southern state of Tamil Nadu later this month, “Ippadikku Rose” (“Yours, Rose”) is expected to cause a sensation, introducing India’s first transgender celebrity to television. (link)

I like the bit about the sari as a flattering garment for transgendered women (will have to keep that in mind…).

Rose has, I gather from the rest of the article, always been effeminate (and I mean that non-pejoratively), though she’s only ‘become’ a woman in the past four years. She has a degree in biomedical engineering (!) from Louisiana Tech:

Rose said attitudes were no less hostile in parts of the United States, where she had spent three years studying at Louisiana Tech University. “There, people were aggressively homophobic,” she said. “America is very hypocritical when it comes to its stand on sexual minorities. Historically, India was very progressive about this until the British came and imposed a Victorian sense of morality, which still remains.” (link)

Interesting — a slightly different twist on the narrative we might have expected (i.e., where someone who doesn’t fit in in India finds a measure of liberation and acceptance abroad). In Louisiana, Rose encountered homophobia; in Chennai, she will be a star.

(See Ennis’ post below for video clips of both the Begum and Rose.) Continue reading →

To supplement Amardeep’s post, I thought I would share a video clip of Rose:

I don’t think she’s as funny as Begum Nawazish Ali, although she is just starting out:

And while the USA has plenty of homophobia, don’t forget that RuPaul had a talk show on American TV in 1996, a decade before either of the desi shows. You can see a clip here.

Continue reading →