Why this step-motherly treatment to Shweta Prasad when we can accept a foreign pornstar whole-heartedly?

The national award-winning actress, the Iqbal fame actress, the girl who did the double role in Makdee, the girl who played Om and Parvati's daughter in Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, and the girl who played the nagging Sweety in Karishma Kaa Karishma.

Does it ring any bell?
Or does "The 23-year-old actress who was caught in sex racket" ring the bells louder?

The way Shweta Basu Prasad, a former child actress who won a national award for her portrayal of a trouble seeker Chunni in Vishal Bhardwaj's Makdee, has been portrayed since the past few days by the media and at the social networking sites, has once again put a question mark on how hypocritical our society is, when it comes to females, their images, and their place in our lives.

The actress, who has bravely accepted that she was involved in a prostitution racket, also went on to say that she did it due to financial crisis as she had not been getting any films.

When it comes to the film industry, it is a well-known fact that talent is what we think gets a career running. But in case of Shweta Prasad (Basu is her mother's maiden name that she added in her screen name), the talent was there, so says the national award, then why did a talented and beautiful actress resorted to prostitution to run her family?

I, in no way, say that what she did was right. There are a thousand other ways in which she could have made her living, but still, what she did was not something that she could have done on her own.

What bothers me is the fact that none of the high-profile clients that were involved with the actress were named. No one knows who those men were who encouraged her to get into prostitution. Some media reports even suggest that these high-profile clients bribed the police to keep their names under wraps.

A moving letter that her on-screen mother, actress Sakshi Tanwar, wrote in DNA tells us the plight of what the Prasad family is going through right now, and how well Shweta is coping in the remand home.

Without taking any names, I would also like to draw the attention towards a leading porn star being accepted as an actress in Indian cinema.

When that can happen, why can't we move on from this one incident and let the young actress explore her career? A few days ago, nude photos of some leading Hollywood actresses were leaked online. Comparing the way that the Hollywood fraternity stood up for them to how leading Bollywood stars have stayed mum and haven't reacted to the whole scandal involving Shweta shows how Bollywood needs to learn something from its American counterparts, when it comes to being biased and judgemental.

We hope that the men who were involved with Shweta in this scandal get arrested soon, and that no other actress has to resort to such petty profession to earn a living even as a national award lies in some corner of their homes, forgotten and dust-ridden.