Nalini Jameela- Celebrity in her own right!

If there is one society in India shrouded with hypocrisy and false morality, it has to be the Kerala society. Though widely hailed as the state with the highest literacy rate and a favorable men to women ratio (1028: 1000 which is much higher than the national and if I am right, the global average), this society has been plagued with instances of atrocities among women which include sexual harrassment and flesh- trade. These instances always hog limelight much to the dismay and disappointment of the girls' and their families involved and we have had umpteen such cases which are pending in the courts of law at various stages of cross- examination (Vithura episode and the Calicut Ice cream parlor case are examples). The victim of the sensational Sooryanelli case ended up as a government servant while there was no such luck for Shari, the Kiliroor sex scandal victim who succumbed to death following premature pregnancy. It was in the wake of these sex scandals that rocked the society that Nalini Jameela published her autobiography- "Oru Laingikathozhilaliyude Aathmakatha" (2005) with the support of social activists like Gopinath and Maithreyan. The book went on to become a best seller with a record sale of 13000 copies and six editions in one month. The average Malayalee who expected juicy episodes of Nalini's sexual encounters with her customers were in for major disappointment though (I have not read the book, this is what I heard from others who had read it and also from the reviews). Instead of getting into the erotic, the book concenterated on the circumstances that forced Nalini Jameela into prostitution. The book did give a major shock to the hypocritic Kerala society and forced it to wake up from the comfortable slumber that it was into. Consequently, there was wide spread awareness campaigns against AIDS, sex scandals, forced prostitution and the like. Nalini Jameela became hot property for the media and a page 3 celebrity in her own right. Suddenly, the sex workers in the state were out in the open, conducting seminars, panel discussions and the like and hogging the media limelight like never before. 2.5 years since the publication of the book, things have not changed much in the state. The sex scandal cases are pending in the courts of law and new sex scandals are coming out in the open. Love making clips are prevalent on MMS and still, the Malayalee society is clinging on to its false morality dictum as always. It is in the wake of all this that Westland books' have recently published the English translation of Nalini Jameela's book- "The autobiography of a Sex Worker". The language being English which is much more universal in appeal, Nalini Jameela is once again the cynosure of all eyes, this time attracting the attention of the National media. She is being profiled by major news channels and all major newspapers are carrying reports and reviews of her book. Nalini would herself not have imagined the world turning around like this for her. From a street prostitute who had to sell herself to eke out a living to a page 3 celebrity- author earning huge amounts of royalty for her books, life definitely has come a full circle for her. The poor lady is doing her bit in rehablitating and educating prostitutes with her hard earned fame and reputation. Nalini's story indeed is gut wrenching and one can draw parallels from her story to those of the girls involved in Sooryanelli, Vithura and Kiliroor. However, what one fails to understand or predict is how long this is going to go on. You have one sex scandal or the other raising its head every fortnight and one celebrity or the other getting involved in one of these. In a scenario like this, would it help if Kerala goes the Thailand way? Only time can tell.