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 “Tsk. I’m hurting”.

 “I’m sorry, a thousand times over”.

“How could you?”

“Boo hoo.”

                                          *************

“I’ve got a movie for you to watch”.

“What’s it on?”

“Cooking”.

“Should I watch to show how sorry I am?”

“Aw, Shona, it’s about a woman who cooked her way through her blog to become a celebrity in America. I thought you might be interested since you blog.”

“Mine is going nowhere.”

“And her blog turned into a book and is selling in thousands.”

“How?”

“Perhaps you could watch Julie and Julia.”

“Hmmm… she wants to cook over 500 recipes from an American cookbook on French culinary delights and report in her blog?”

“There’s more I’m told by the good ladies at my office. The women are watching it in droves because it showcases the perils of women cooking while ‘servantless’ in America.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what comes in the way of good cooking the wise women of yore would tell you, plus lack of kitchen appliances and processed food options. Besides, mine left just this morning leaving my helpless too. I’ve cut my finger peeling a potato, chipped my nail grating a coconut, and have my sinuses playing havoc for cleaning the kitchen shelves and the cook’s broken the grill again”.

“The movie showcases girlie angst. Will that not connect?”

“Ha, that’s a bitch.”

“Also, feminine polish and womanly perseverance.”

“Oh, well, we aspire, but end up cursing like sailors.”

“Of uxorious husbands as one reviewer put it.”

“What a word! Are you telling me I am a bossy wife? Am I, huh? Huh?”

“Perhaps supportive and doting husbands could be better terms?”

“Sure, sure, has a better ring to it.”

“And some great cookware.”

“I have only old and chipped stuff; my stove needs a wipe and shine, the chimney could do with cleaning; I could do with a new casserole; a fancy sauce boat, some new-age stainless steel pots; woks are so year 2000 …”

“The blogger had a run-down kitchen and yet came up with gastronomic delights, fantastic meals and a huge advance and a successful book.”

 “But I am not interested in cooking!”

“I’m not saying you should” (hurriedly switches on movie as expensive cookware lists continue).

“Maybe we could begin watching it. Chick flick and all that, hmm?”

“Yeah, whatever” (recalls bad behaviour by self and bites lips doubtfully, throws a blanket over and settles on sofa as movie rolls on).

“Gosh, those giant lobsters look dangerous; Aiyo! She’s slitting a duck and sewing it up; pouring all that wine into beef?”

“It’s French cooking!”

“I’m vegetarian.”

“Don’t I know?”

“This is lovely, but won’t do for me. I can’t plod through Meenakshiammal’s recipes through a year and write a blog on a maami who goes cooking through her book. Khalaas!Poota kesu! Gone only I am!”

“Julia is a symbol of inspiration of a lifestyle and genteel manners and homespun elegance that seem absent in these days of fast food and greedy ambitions and quick solutions. She is more to the blogger than a book of recipes. She represents a lost culture of living that’s worth aspiring”.

“Gosh, where do I find that?”   

“And while you’re searching, can I ask what’s for dinner?”

“Oh, the usual. I’m going to bed after a veggie soup.”

“And I, with dreams of beef bouilion and duck roast.”

                                         *******

“Erm, am I forgiven, even though I don’t cook or my blog doesn’t make a paisa leave alone millions?”

“Hush, never mind.”

“What did Julia Child say in the movie? It sounded so right?”

‘You are the butter to my bread.’

“I might as well say that of you.”

The Deputation – II

Part I

On Monday morning Sunil found himself seated before his desk at the Chennai office. The commute had been quick despite the throng of noisy traffic amidst squealing autos, whizzing bikes, long green buses and cars and women on scooters weaving through the lanes. He noted tiny shrines at road corners and T- intersections and dark women selling mounds of jasmine strings before the temples.

At office his ears picked up the strain of English and occasional laughter and odd bits of Tamil. The men looked sober and their manner relaxed when they stepped into the canteen. The team was formal and proper with him unlike the boisterous, vocal colleagues he was used to. He spotted a few women- looking modest and dressed conservatively. He noted the absence of sharp heels, formal pencil trousers and blouses or tight kurtis. And none left their hair open or flashed bright lipsticks.

Sunil’s boss Ve.Kreeshnan looked formidable and jumped into work without preamble. He overheard the brats call him ‘Brain Curry’ for having an answer to everything and capacity to argue his colleagues down. Sunil found himself missing affable Mohan Ram and his avuncular jolliness. After a meeting and a round of introduction to the members of his team Kreeshnan’s superior manner relaxed and he said, “Sunil, if you need help around the place, Chitra here can assist”. Sunil nodded at the young lady who looked up from her papers at him. He thought of something intelligent to say but ended up silent, staring uneasily at his shoes.

“It’s OK, we don’t bite”, she sat back in her seat, containing a smile.

“This is intimidating”, he muttered.

“It’s logic! Why do you think we win Nobels for absolute sciences?” she asked turning in the chair, tapping a pen on the desk.

Sunil groaned, flopping down in a chair besides her.

“Who holds forth on defence strategies on TV?” she quizzed, po-faced.

“Dunno. Some Rangachar, a random Swaminath?” Sunil guessed.

“Not bad. Who tips rockets up Indian skies? Who designs weapons at Pokhran?” she demanded.

“Uh, a Ram murti? A Chidambaram? Kalam?”

 “Full marks!”

“I thought you’ll were pacifists”, he said.

“With deadly defence mechanisms”, she said, adding, “It’s lunch time. Eat up rice and rasam quick and get back to work ”.

“No! ” he said, alarmed.

“Sorry, won’t flog the stereotype further”, she  smiled, “Say your prayers and you might get roti and dal at lunch”, she said turning to her monitor.

“Thanks Ma’am”, he said sullenly.

“It’s Maydam”, she corrected.

He left the spot smarting and by evening cooled down to his chatty self. “Is there a watering hole for us to gather after work?” he asked Chitra as they prepared to leave for the day.

“Well, there are pubs. Ask Vivek. He could help you with that”, she said, seeming eager to pass the responsibility.

 “You don’t?” he asked.

“I can hold the odd glass of wine or syrupy cocktail at annual official functions and that hardly counts”, she said.

“And the music scene?” he asked.

“Well, in December we have the biggest concerts for classical music in the country,” she said.

“Not, not Karnatak music; rock, bands, gigs, stuff like that”.

“I suppose something happens. Ask Vivek”.

Ask Vivek suggested, “Unwind Center, Gandhi Nagar. Hmm, also, The Vineyard near a temple on Nelson Manickam Road-but no booze, or reef in there-they’ve combined charity and making music. Serious music, their June-Out fest is good too. But got to behave; head banging OK, barfing on beer no-no”.

“Fuck!” exclaimed Sunil.

“Absolutely not on their premises. Don’t want people who can’t hold a drink, OD, bash things up, and molest girls. I suppose you are familiar with that kind of mess in Delhi,” Ask Vivek remarked piously.

 ****************

That evening Sunil worried about his singlehood snuffed by dull evenings and had visions of rusting away. He aimlessly switched channels watching swarthy heroes and plump heroines do dance hall pelvic moves on Sun TV.

David rolled out from his room, washed and ready to leave. Sunil looked longingly at him, fighting shy to ask where he was off to. “I’m not having dinner here. You could fix your rice”, David said. Sunil nodded.

“How does one pass the evenings here?” he asked, unable to hold himself.

“Ah, you can do this and that. I’m off to check out some jazz tonight at the American Center”, said David.

“There are?” asked Sunil.

“I’ve heard bits of local groups like E Flat, Null Friction, Rusty Moe. There’s a November Fest and the Museum Theatre, Egmore, hosts such events. You could come if you want to”. Sunil stopped short of smiling like a kid offered a lolly.

He had heard better, but they had a pleasant evening and stopped by a pub on the way back. It wasn’t noisy and was at a posh hotel on Nungambakkam High Road. The beer was overpriced but hey, no one brandished a gun.They wound their way fighting auto drivers and haggling prices and stopped by a vegetarian joint. Sunil wasn’t enthusiastic but he was grateful to David for the evening’s company and he watched in fascination as David tore a dosa expertly and dunked it in a katori of sambar and wolfed it down. “Don’t you miss your home food?” he asked. David thought a bit. He said he’d left home from Cardiff at 17 as was usual in his circle as a rite of passage into independent adult life and had always managed his food on his own since. “Mum is a nurse and father worked in the factories. We’ve grown on functional meals at home and living alone, cooking, and travelling has developed an appetite for other kinds of food. And if it comes as cheap as this, who’s to complain”, he said, ordering a dahi vada.

Sunil did not want to act desperate for David’s company, but he showed extra enthusiasm asking around at office and checking the internet for making plans for the weekends. David seemed to not mind the company as well. ‘He must be lonely like me too’, thought Sunil warming up to the notion of them as lost comrades on hostile shores. David would read up travel books and make plans for the weekend. They visited film societies for alternate European cinema. Sunil found it esoteric and at times boring and if he said so after a couple of drinks, David didn’t mind in his usual polite manner. Sunil dragged David to cut the rug at a local disco but found David lagging in enthusiasm.

Between their differing interests they found common areas of peace. They drove on motorbikes to Mamallapuram and burnt their backs under the glare of the sun; took a bus to Puducherry and slept on the sands and found a sense of peace by the whispering waves; Sunil tagged along David and visited ruined Jain temples in neighbouring Kanchipuram and uploaded photos on flickr and received a, ‘Wow! You should seriously hold an exhibition of your photographs,’ comment from Tejal. They hung around a car rally, thanks to free corporate tickets at Irungatukottai at Sriperumbudur. Sunil tried his hand at fishing alongside David at Puzhal Lake in Red Hills and failed, but shared a sense of quiet in the village and ate at tiny eateries. He was surprised to note David take to grimy buses and awful hotel rooms and bad food without much grumbling on their travels. Sunil didn’t want to act fussy and spoilt and held back from complaining.

One holiday, they landed at a carnival of transvestites and transgendered people at Koovagam near Villupuram; they passed grass between each other on the stops down ECR Road; got invited to farm house dinners thrown by advertising professional  folks. David seemed attracted to bharatanatyam recitals by bejewelled women. “They look like goddesses”, he remarked. Sunil found its depth and tradition too weighty for him. He felt light after he got laid near an artist’s colony at a farm house gathering. It was a tumble after a bout of heavy drinking and she had been dusky, lithe, with long hair raining down her back. He vaguely remembered she was working on experimental dance and chhau. The morning after he found no trace of her and was left nursing a bad hangover at work. But the dreamy recollection of her suppleness disturbed him on nights to come.

                                                                                                                                                                                                        **********

Ask Vivek and Chitra accompanied David and Sunil to the cinema to take in a Tamil film experience. The film was dreary about a thick-set hero who morphed into a vigilante rooster to combat villains. The heroine was curvy.

“Great tush”, Sunil said. David nodded eagerly.

“She’s Punjabi like you”, Ask Vivek informed.

“I’m Haryanvi. Why do you have some many north Indian heroines here?” Sunil asked.

“Revenge, for stealing some of our most beautiful women into Bollywood”, Chitra remarked.

He turned to look at her and smiled. They were seated besides each other in one of Chennai’s new seaside cinema and entertainment complexes. He had been surprised that she had joined them that evening. Apart from small talk over work or cursory greetings she kept to herself pretty much or with her circle of colleagues. At office, in the canteen, or while they took the lift together, she ignored Sunil with studied politeness, her manner icy, and that was sign enough she was aware of his presence. It gave him a little satisfaction that he did not go unnoticed in this alien city.

 ***********

Sunil’s life had settled to a steady hum with the months rolling. David and he picked up a few words in Tamil, and a select vocabulary of expletives. They learnt to handle the auto drivers by releasing a volley of curses in Hindi and Welsh alternately. Sunil made bold to try his hand at making rajma and failed as the beans refused to boil into juicy softness. He lost it with the cleaning woman who struggled to roll out rotis but stopped himself yelling at them as he did back home. His immediate neighbour, a couple with a college-going son, had warmed to them. The wife helped him with vegetarian recipes and explained to the cook their needs in Tamil and other smaller tasks. Despite the suspicious glances they got as bachelors among the families with stern looking elders, David and Sunil managed to keep to their own. “Bringing girls in and playing loud music is a no-no”, their neighbour warned. David winked at this.

Diwali was when homesickness hit Sunil most. He missed the shopping, revelry, festivities, gifts, parties, twinkling lamps and pretty string lights that would excite his mother and sister. Here he was woken up by firecrackers early on in the morning and TVs blaring talking-hosts show; and he received a plate of hard squiggly namkeen and homemade sweets from his neighbour, and ‘Happy Deepavali Bhaiya ’ greetings by the schoolboys bursting crackers in their compound.

Local expats invited David for a turkey dinner at Christmas and Sunil went along. “You’re religious?” Sunil asked at the end of the evening. David shrugged. “My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister; my parents went to church on occasions and I think that it is enough religion in the family. My brothers and I are not into it.”

Sunil felt a guilty pang when he ate Chettinad chicken on an odd Tuesday for breaking an unspoken commitment to his mother. He stopped to stare at the black gods on roadside temples where women gathered in large numbers on Fridays and thought of her. And he did something never done before-write his mother a letter. It was a shy and clumsy note, but her heart had melted, her eyes misted over. Nani didn’t fall short of serving a rustic aphorism for the moment: “When a daughter stares into the mirror for long, she has matured into a woman; when a son feels for his mother, he has turned into a man.”

*******

They met at a micro-brewery at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon.

“The Chennai sun has turned you dark in the past two years,” Amit said accusingly while Sunil played with the icy sweat on his tumbler. Pablo’s nicotine-inspired brooding was the same. Karthik apologised that he had missed meeting him while he came south on a holiday.

“Are you happy to be back?”Tejal asked.

“I suppose so”, grinned Sunil.

“You don’t seem dead!” commented Amit surprised.

“I wasn’t unhappy and learnt to take care of myself ”, he shrugged.

“You scored-a?” asked Unni.

“That too”, winked Sunil.

Ja baba! And now have they converted you to the greater cause of the Tamil nation!” Pablo exclaimed.

“Nah. But they’ve co-opted me into their tendency to acclimatise well”, said Sunil smiling.

“Helloji, please place the order first”, said Tejal, playing unofficial hostess.

“Make mine a masala dosa and whisky on the rocks”, Sunil played up, with an evil grin at his friends.

“Let’s drown this Rajnikanth ass-licker in sambar”, Amit cried.

“Perhaps the next to go on deputation to Chennai will be Amit”, Karthik joined in the dare.

“Over my dead body”, Amit roared, pelting them with peanuts from the snack bowl.

The Deputation

 “Congratulations!”

 Sunil Tyagi’s heart sank.

He stood still as his boss G. Mohan Ram held forth: “The deputation to Chennai is a good move-up, career-wise. It offers a better pay packet and you will oversee a larger account and be responsible for a global delivery system. Chennai is growing faster in IT investment in India; cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore are just overselling themselves. You are single, the rents are cheap, and you can easily find a place near Old Mahabalipuram Road or the ECR and save money.” Ram wiggled his hips in the chair and brightened: “The beach is very nice. No winter, cold and all like here. Brrr!” he pretended to shiver. “And the food is very good”. His eyes shone as he tattled, “Idli, sambar, dosa. Not the fake variety you get here at Naivedyam, hyuk, hyuk! The asli stuff, you know”.

Idli, your tits! Sunil smiled tightly, shook hands with Ram, before exiting the cabin.

                                                                                   **********

They gathered at the usual place after work: Turquoise Cottage on MG Road, Gurgaon. It was ‘Happy Hours’ when a free drink was thrown in for each order and it made piling on the drinks easier on the wallet. An Indie rock group was belting into the mike. The band’s lead looked unwashed and suitably angry as he plucked his guitar. A young Mizo woman, in short tee and dangerously low jeans, was the main vocalist. A navel-pin twinkled from the depths of her flat belly.

 “I want to bite that Manga babe’s navel ring”, announced Unni staring at the glinting trinket. The gathering at the table ignored him.  

“That curd-rice Ram nailed your ass, I’m telling you, sacchi”, said Amit.

 “It can’t be that bad a place”, said Tejal nodding at the waiter and ordering a round of drinks and chicken kebabs and paneer tikkas. “Less violence, stress, quieter”, she added.

Matlab ki sleepy?” Amit butted. “Booze hard to come by, chicks don’t flirt or show legs, pubs shut down before midnight, and they hate Hindi”.

“The book shops have a wide collection, kharab na; and they have good sea fish”, said Pablo. The withering looks from his mates at the table were lost on him as he blew a line of smoke rings.

“We are talking about getting a life Pablo!” Amit snapped.

“We mean babes, booze, action and that kind of thing and all you can talk is about books”, Unni elaborated.

“What’s with your obsession, Porn King? You mean to say he gets laid through the month here?” Pablo asked, jerking a thumb at Sunil.

“You’re so mind fucked that you let your dick sleep all year long only to awaken during Pujo”, Unni rebutted.

“Dudes, drop it.This is pathetic”, said Sunil morosely, “I’m leaving in a fortnight”.

“Isn’t it embarrassing that despite hailing from elite educational institutions, with middle class backgrounds, civilised upbringing and all of that shit, this table is talking provincial, and glaringly prejudiced, dumbing down to stereotypes and reinforcing popular notions?” Karthik spoke up for the first time. “Sunil, you will face similar problems as a southerner does in north India- stereotyping, mocking, loneliness and fleecing in a city where you don’t know the language or your way around. Be man enough to deal with differences and don’t whinge”, he said setting his glass down.

“To hell with your logic, bhenchod”, Amit swept away from the table to the men’s. Unni downed his shot glass and walked to take a closer look at the singer. Pablo grunted behind his smoke screen; Karthik cussed under his breath, and Tejal patted Sunil’s arm and smiled weakly.

                                                                                                             ***************

Life had taken a turn for Sunil in the past two weeks since his transfer papers from Gurgaon to Chennai came through. His parents had been irritatingly cheerful and supportive.

His mother had nodded that, “The city has less of trouble, and beta, remember to be vegetarian on Tuesdays. I’ve prayed that you will fast for good luck there”. She tied a piece of red thread on his wrist for blessings. 

Tyagi Senior with his brassy army background said, “They are disciplined out there”.

Nani murmured counting her rosary, “Their chief minister likes Ravanji like us.”

“Eh?”

“We believe Ravanji was venerable and not evil for he was a learned Brahmin. Why, in our ancestral villages we mourned Ravan’s death and did not celebrate Ramji’s victory”. Sunil scooted. He didn’t want a treatise on the Ramayan as he prepared to leave.

                                                                           *******************

He landed at the Kamaraj Domestic Airport in Chennai on a Saturday morning to be hit by the grime in the air, the humidity and heat. With adequate warnings from back home he had avoided the raucous pack of auto drivers and chosen a pre- paid taxi at the airport to arrive at Valmiki Nagar, a beachside suburb in Chennai. A company-leased two-bedroom flat that he would share with another colleague awaited him. He had been beset with fears of the unknown, worrying his flatmate would be grubby and messy with whom he might have drunken quarrels. At better moments he wished that it would perhaps be a guy from Delhi or Mumbai, who spoke Hindi. And when he allowed himself to get carried away, he hoped at the thrill of an attractive female colleague as a flat mate.

Sunil entered a nondescript tower of flats and a sleepy guard nodded absently and helped him with his bags to the lift. He looked up to see tiers of balconies with box-like grilles. He found plenty of laundry flapping in the sea breeze outside the balconies-wide white veshtis, deep coloured saris, cloth towels and hand washed underwear. Not much colourful lingerie there, he noted wistfully.

The lift didn’t work. A piece of paper was stuck on the lift door and it said, ‘Maintenance repairs’.  He went up the stairs passing three floors of silent shut doors. The landings were scrubbed and patterns of kolam were drawn on the floor area outside the doors. Tiny laminated photos of a five-headed Ganesha were stuck on top of some doors and some had strung mango leaves and hung them up on doorways as blessed charms. He noted a doorway with a trendy name plate and a Gujarati embroidered toran over the door mantel.  Some flats had tiny shelves arranged with footwear outside their front doors too. The air smelt of milk, camphor, and a certain curry flavour that he was not keen to know better. An infant’s wail pierced the mid-morning peace.

He arrived a little breathless on the top floor where the flat was located and rang the bell. The door was barren of good luck charms unlike the others and seemed unwelcoming. The door creaked open and he saw a flash of brown hair and grey eyes. He was startled that he had come to the wrong flat when the door opened further. A White man stood in a pair of Madras plaid shorts, his chest bare, and his right wrist encircled by bead bracelets in wood.

 “You must be Soonil?” he asked.

Sunil nodded uncertainly.

“David Evans, I’ll be sharing the flat with you here,” he said, opening the door to allow Sunil in.

****************

Sunil settled in much earlier than he expected. His room and bathroom were neat and sparsely furnished with a bed and basic cupboards and shelves. He looked out of the window and could spot a strip of beach at a distance.  A crow flew to a neighbour’s window sill and looked expectantly, cocking its head. A wrist with gold bangles slipped out from the window bars and served a ladle of cooked rice on the window ledge. The crow cawed loudly, jerked its head, and convulsively pecked at its food. 

David explained a cleaning woman came in to do the top work and she doubled as cook of sorts as well.

“What does she cook?” Sunil asked suspiciously.

“Sambaar, Madras curry, rice, chicken”, David sounded disinterested. “And, oh white coffee and tea”.

“Roti, dal, rajma?”

“Afraid not”.

“How do you talk to her?” Sunil asked, wondering.

“Oh, we manage”, said David smiling a little, and nodded and shook his head furiously. Sunil laughed and relaxed.

“How long does it take to reach the office from here?”

“Um,  15 minutes. A car pool is on and you could join in I suppose”.

“Whom do you report to here?” asked David.

“Ve.Kreeshnan”, Sunil said adding, “South Indians have strange initials to their names”.

“Ah, yes. A bit like us Welsh.They are patronyms, after the first names of our fathers and not strictly surnames,” he said.

David had pulled a tee over as he spoke and slung a knapsack over his back and readied to leave. “Here’s your set of keys.  Be seeing you”.

Sunil held himself with difficulty from asking where David was off to and felt a panic attack at the lack of company. He felt a strange protectiveness that his flatmate would be at large in a city without knowing the language and whereabouts. But the Welshman perched a cap and pair of sunglasses on and disappeared mysteriously into the blinding heat.

(to be concluded)

 (Acknowledgment:

krishashok for idea, editing, and updates)                                                 

Vainglorious Bashtards

                  

There is no profession that makes sexism more apparent in all its crudity than Indian film industry. I can speak with better familiarity about Tamil filmdom where the heroes and aligned menfolk are vainglorious, and the heroines are but women treated as puppets in their fiefdom.

In the pre internet/MMS days, we had a talkative man who would share ‘stories’ off-the- record. He was an old bird in a widely circulated Tamil daily who was privy to  the sleaze and scandals of filmdom and was better known as the ‘cover’ man for taking envelopes with money from filmmakers, producers to carry publicity material in the newspaper. He looked creepy and wizened but  was the illiterate Richard Corliss and Truman Capote of Tamil filmdom and led the venal press in Madras, a good 20 years ago. He was important because he was privy to nuggets of salacious information on stars and especially starlets and his column would suggest how “Jigujigu dancing starlet spent endless time in fat hero’s make up room” and other such kisukisu or whispers.  In his  days  he commanded enviable influence in the fraternity.Why, film previews and mahurats would wait to begin only after his arrival! Despite his unctuousness he seemed fitting of a film industry which did not fight shy of covering its sleaze component.

The other male figure that would unsettle me in film units was the costumier. I have lost count of the times when an actress invited me to her make-up room and decided to talk even as she got ready to give her shot. The pretty lady would stand in her petticoat and blouse while the oily costumier would drape her sari, pin and tuck her pleats over her bosom and button her blouse up.As also the make up man. The make up sangam that has its office in T.Nagar does not find it strange that its rule book states women not be allowed to be makeup professionals. The makeup man will be the old character who will pat powder on the heroine’s belly and back, while her poor chaperone, called a hairdresser, would stand by with a barber’s comb and hair spray.

I won’t go into the stories of actresses weeping in their homes confessing their many heartbreaks and betrayals; the mothers who have raged and ranted about top actors who damaged their daughter’s reputations for refusing to go to bed with them. These are no secrets or classified information. Much of the world has guessed right the plight of these beautiful women they fantasise on screen as goddesses. 

With such strange customs, characters and environment it is not shocking to find actresses dismissed in derogatory terms. The actress is a product to be passed through hands- from producer, director, touched up the costumier and finally sullied by the ‘film journalist’ in print. Heroes, middle-aged or not, are allowed indiscretions and hopping beds, but the film heroine occupies a bed of thorns. She has to remain unmarried and therefore virginal on celluloid, be shared by heroes off screen, touched and groped by her colleagues like the costumier, cinematographer and others. She can be summarily dismissed as trollop in private conversations and banter. She will be labelled a whore playing the men if she displayed survival tricks; a madame supervising her bordello when she lost her celluloid status by getting hitched or dumped ;or aged and desperate to keep the income coming in. She would slit her wrists and swallow fistfuls of pills, have her career destroyed, and her peace shattered when the going got rough for her. It is not surprising that the highest number of actresses who have committed suicide have worked in the Tamil film industry.

A cacophony involving a small- time actress,  has allegedly accused  many senior  actresses of Tamil cinema of running brothels has erupted in Chennai. This “confession” was published in the newspaper carrying photographs of the actresses without verifying or seeking their opinion. Afterall actresses are “immoral” and their reputation will not suffer than public opinion that has already marked them as fallen women.

Many of the actresses are livid and offended; the influential film stars have got the person who wrote the piece arrested; the local Chennai press is crying that its voice is being muzzled. Would the newspaper have published the names and photographs of actors or say politicians for running a sex racket going by allegations in a police lock up confession that was leaked to a journalist? The answer is surely no. Since these were actresses who by an unspoken definition is a prostitute for them, it seemed OK to run with the story in print.

When the excitement dies down, the pressman will strut as a hero; the journalists will feel vindicated; the police will know whom to knock for Diwali gifts this time around. It will be business as usual even for those actresses who have had their reputation sullied by a society that sees them only as objects of flesh. Shaming them by calling them prostitutes is a periodical pastime for a society  who forget that the clients of these actresses are men of all hues.

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