Ubiquity

Nalini Jameela, a sex worker, encountered writer’s block after one of her clients came across a line in an early draft of her book: “I am 49 years old.” She had told him she was only 42. Ms. Jameela lost the client and, briefly, her nerve.

In 2007, a publishing house agreed to publish the English translation of Ms. Jameela’s memoirs. Dignified in her crisp saris, Ms. Jameela would hold her own in interactions with curious, occasionally judgmental, readers and reporters. At one news conference, a young woman asked her how she could “sleep with men for money,” and whether she had lost all her dignity “as a woman.”

From across the room, Ms. Jameela grinned. “I wonder,” she said, “why no one thinks of the profession of wife in that way — as a woman who sleeps with one man, often for money or shelter. She could get better rates with a broader client base.”