Kushboo; The scapegoat of Tamilnadu

Actress Kushboo is in a real mess. She has committed a heinous crime by speaking her mind out. And Suhasini, the famous south actress and director wife of famous director Mani Ratnam also made to eat humble pie for her remarks supporting Kushboo. What’s the big issue? Kushboo publicly stated that pre-marital sex is not a sin, but a reality and no man should expect his spouse to be virgin. Well, not verbatim but in this meaning. It was more than enough for the moral police to charge her with everything except murder and drag her to the court. While some of the courts dismissed the petitions as baseless, some courts thought otherwise. So as it is, she is fighting a (losing?) battle. All by herself.

She was just speaking the plain truth and these could have used to make the hugely innocent and unknowing people to become aware about the perils of un-protected sex and sexual education. Instead they chose to ignore the issue and make her pay for her openness.

Let us check some startling statistics.

In India, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is assuming catastrophic proportions. In fact India is on the verge of breaking the 1% of total population barrier. It must have already but as you know the statistics regarding AIDS/HIV is very vague. The stigma and discrimination attached to this disease is stopping people from going in for check-ups and confirming. And they keep on spreading it to unsuspecting partners

Check the following figures;

NATIONAL AIDS CONTROL PROGRAMME, INDIA
AIDS CASES IN INDIA (Reported to NACO)
(As on 31^st July, 2005)

S. No. State/UT AIDS Cases 1 Andhra Pradesh 12349 2 Assam 225 3 Arunachal Pradesh 0 4 A & N Islands 33 5 Bihar 155 6 Chattisgarh 0 7 Chandigarh (UT) 1260 8 Delhi 970 9 Daman & Diu 1 10 Dadra & Nagar Haveli 0 11 Goa 567 12 Gujarat 5636 13 Haryana 486 14 Himachal Pradesh 252 15 Jharkhand 0 16 Jammu & Kashmir 2 17 Karnataka 2896 18 Kerala 1769 19 Lakshadweep 0 20 Madhya Pradesh 1396 21 Maharashtra 13747 22 Orissa 467 23 Nagaland 736 24 Manipur 2866 25 Mizoram 106 26 Meghalaya 8 27 Pondicherry 302 28 Punjab 292 29 Rajasthan 1153 30 Sikkim 8 31 Tamilnadu 52036 32 Tripura 5 33 Uttranchal 0 34 Uttar Pradesh 1383 35 West Bengal 2397 36 A,bad Mun.Corp. 621 37 Chennai M.C. 0 38 Mumbai M.C 7484 Total: 111608

Tamilnadu has the highest cases reported this year!

So sex is not a forbidden fruit here any more! As per NACO statistics more than 85% are infected by sexual transmission. But don’t be scared yet! What you are seeing the just the tip of iceberg. The real mountain is under water, hidden from your eyes.

The need of the hour is to educate people about the perils of this and do some serious work to prevent it’s further spreading. But these people seems to be enveloped in some false issues like Tamil Pride and petty stuff like that. In any other state Kushboo could become a AIDS spokesperson and the government would jump to have her on the AIDS awareness programs considering her enormous fan following. Remember, once these same Tamilians built a temple for her.

We should admit that India is indeed changing. The veiled and sex-is-taboo girl is already banished to the pages of history. And why not? It is not in any society’s interest to keep females chained to the tradition and discipline. When men can not adhere to these rules, how can you expect your woman to be?

The last but not least. Watch any of these Tamil Channels for Film songs, and serials. There you can see scantily clad females dancing with their Heroes and these very people enjoy and watch it. What can you call it except hypocrisy? What they say is not what they speak for. Just double standard male chauvinistic mentality. It’s time that every one take a real view at the grim situation and work in unison. If you keep clinging to your beliefs and hope for the best, one day the catastrophic wind that is brewing right under your nose, called AIDS, will blow away you with it’s sheer power and then there won’t be any time to make amends. So rally behind people who are seeing the reality instead of crucifying them.