In the pre-puja shopping spree that engulfs Kolkata, thousands of shops sell millions of saris every year. This year, the shoppers will be given a new market to cater to – that of the transgender community. Kolkata is all set to organize a two-day exhibition-cum-sale of saris and handcrafted jewellery to be held next week in the south Kolkata neighborhood of Jadavpur.
“We were thinking of such an effort for quite some time, and finally decided to hold it just before Durga Puja. This is the biggest festival of Bengal when the people go on a shopping spree,” said Upasana Agarwal, an alumni of Jadavpur university, an artist by profession and founder and organizing member of Amra Odbhut (We are queer), the group that is behind the event.
The products to be displayed will include hand-embroidered saris, T- shirts, apart from jewellery. The sale will be held on September 16 and 17. The members of Amra Odbhut said the jewellery will be priced between Rs 250 and Rs 2,500. The saris will be priced Rs 2,500 onwards. I can guarantee the products will be worth each penny they spend,” Agarwal said.
The group also runs a pop-up café selling a variety of items cooked by queer and transgender persons, which, the organizers claim, is the first such café in the country.
Members of the transgender community of Bengal are now looking for opportunities to merge with the mainstream of society. A few weeks ago some of them organized relief for flood victims in the state. This step along with the sale of saris, tee shirt and jewellery indicate that a section of the community are planning their own activity rather than waiting for government’s welfare schemes.
Bengal is a state where the transgender community has received some attention. The Mamata Banerjee government appointed Manabi Bandyopadhyay as the country’s first transgender college principal. In July this year, Joyita Mondal Mahi, 29, the state’s first transgender judge of a Lok Adalat.
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