Intro: The arrest of an award winning actress in a prostitution racket has again highlighted the underbelly of glamour and the double standards of both the media and film industries. ?
When the glamour world of films and TV serials scouts for talent, it’s a pure commercial exercise. Till the ‘talent’ fetches moolah in the form of box office hits and TRPs, there is work. Else, no one will remember you are alive. It’s as ruthless as that.
The combined lure of glamour, publicity and riches attracts thousands of girls and boys daily to the film and TV world. The ‘lucky’ ones, who get a break, become so engrossed in building this ‘career’ that they cannot imagine one day the same industry may throw them out like a discarded bag. Yet, this happens to almost 99 per cent of them. The worst is when genuine talent is used and forgotten in the same manner. And, when this happens to an artist who stood beside the President of India to receive the national award as best child artist, it is a national shame.
Whether we judge her or sympathise with her, no one can deny the fact that it is the film and TV industry which is responsible for the situation the actress finds herself in. If a national award winning artist like her cannot find work, one is forced to wonder if it is really ‘talent’ that is in demand or something else. Let’s not forget that today a ‘porn star’ is being offered more roles than she can handle!
As a child artist, the actress bagged the national award for best child artist for Makdee in 2002 and shot to fame in Ekta Kapoor”s television serial Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki. The actress, who also did a few films in Bengali, Tamil and Telugu, was arrested from a hotel on September 7 night along with the sex racket”s organiser. A Mumbai businessman, who has not been identified, was one of many people arrested in the raid. Next day, the court sent her to a rescue home run by the women and child welfare department.
The actress conceded that she had been lured into prostitution after roles in Bollywood films dried up and she ran out of money. “I’m not the only one who faced this problem and there are several other heroines who have gone through this phase,” she said.
Many aspiring actors enter film industries all over the country and are often exploited by power brokers within the industry.
Here the role of the society, and especially the parents and family members, can be crucial. All aspiring actors, whether boys or girls, must prepare themselves for an alternative career. If they fail to make their mark in the film industry, they should be able to fall back on other legal avenues of earning money – so that they are nor lured into illegal trades like prostitution, drugs etc. Let us equip our youth to deal with the rejection of film industry.
The entire episode has also raised a big question on the media industry. One of the established ethics of media policy is that the name and photo of a victim of sexual harassment, rape and prostitution are never highlighted. It is an unwritten policy that has been scrupulously followed by all media houses till recently. But in this particular case, all ethics have been shredded to pieces. Established and ‘responsible’ media houses splashed actress name and photos across the print, electronic and digital media with total disregard to her rights. Sakshi Tanwar, her on-screen mother in Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, has asked a very relevant question: “In a country where even rapists and murderers are given the right to privacy, why has an actor”s right been violated?”
Worst still, with shameless hypocrisy, the names of the ‘clients’ of this prostitution racket were carefully kept under wraps. Neither the police nor the media found it was relevant to expose them!
Prostitution, like any other trade, is a process of supply and demand. Only when there is a demand, for which consumers are ready to pay heavily, do people find ways to supply the products – by hook or by crook. In an illegal trade, both parties are guilty. But in my view, those who demand sexual favours in return for money are bigger culprits than the girls who take to this means in desperate need of money. And if the media fails to expose just one party and conveniently shields the other, one wonders if the media too has become blatantly partisan.
Abha Khanna Gupta? (The writer is a senior Journalist and Social worker)??
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