Unmasking Cruel Faces of Men
We sell nudity
Just to buy clothes – Naa. Kamarasan in Karuppu Malargal
What is the masculine
gender for the Tamil word ‘Vidhavai or Kaimpen” which denotes a woman, whose
husband is dead?
A woman, who is
forced to be a sex worker, is contemptuously mentioned as ‘Vibachari or
prostitute’ but, how to call the man, who indulges in sex with her? A married
woman is easily identified with her wearing of mangal sutra (solemnizing chain) and metti (Toe ring) But how to identify a man whether he is married or
not?
Writer Nalini Jameela
discovered why such questions were unanswerable only after she was forced to be
a sex worker. But being an exceptional woman of great courage, she is
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still
tracing the answers for these questions.
As Jameela
experienced the bondage within her family when her tyrannical father, who
claimed himself as a ‘communist’ and a ‘follower’ of Sri Narayana Guru, but
often beat his wife brutally, Jameela could not continue her studies after III
standard and was forced to work in a clay mine at the age of nine.
Thrown out of the
house by her father when she was 18 years old, Jameela got married and gave
birth to two children. However, after her husband died, she was forced to be a
sex worker to earn a living with her two children and mother-in-law. However,
with an object that sex workers too should be recognized in the society,
Jameela joined an organization, which championed the rights of sex workers and
penned her autobiography in her mother tongue Malayalam as Njan Laingika Thozhilaali (I am a sex worker) which has been
translated into numerous languages.
“My becoming a sex
worker was something accidental in my life. However, I am not ashamed to call
myself so. Because, had I not been a sex worker, I could not have understood
the world of men, their pretence and their dominance on women” says the 60 year
old author, who was in the city recently to address in a symposium organized by
Aruna Aranilai on the title “Pen Ean Adimayanal “(Why did woman become a
slave?)
Answering to a
question on why girls are deprived of their rights to express what they think
as equally as boys, Jameela says:
“In fact, the rights
are always with them. But, it’s a great pity that girls themselves are ignorant
of it “
“Her father guards her in her childhood, her husband
guards her in her youth, and her sons guards her in old age. A woman is not fit
for independence”
Criticizing the above
verse in Manudharma Shasthra for its
contemptible attitude on women, Jameela pointed out that girls are consigned to
a lifetime of servitude within their families, which are dominated by male
members like father, husband and son.
Recalling an incident
in her life where one of her clients filled a glass of wine and offered her
saying that he had never served even his wife by getting her a tumbler of
water, Jameela took a pot shot on him:
“And that’s why you
are forced to approach a sex worker. Your wife should have loved you so much,
if you had treated her with equality, respecting her likes and dislikes”
B Meenakshi Sundaram
