Meet Sangeetha Serasinghe, a wild young woman of Sri Lankan descent living in the City of Los Angeles, California. After her parents died during clashes between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, Sangeetha came to stay with her aunt Meena in Los Angeles. At first, the young Sri Lankan woman experienced culture shock, which was to be expected since Sri Lanka and the United States of America are worlds apart. Sangeetha, a fearless soul hardened by a difficult life, was destined to make her mark on her adopted country.
After completing a bachelor's degree in Political Science at UCLA and finding herself unemployed, Sangeetha began working as a stripper. While working at Club Lotus, Sangeetha met Dick Frost, former porn star, who suggested she give the adult film industry a try. Sangeetha found this an intriguing proposition. South Asian cultures as a whole are conservative, and most families monitor their daughters activities and behaviors even in the United States of America, but Sangeetha has always been her own woman...
Sangeetha had a great time at UCLA, where she met folks from all over the world. Lots of young South Asian women either date men from their cultures exclusively, or they end up with white men...or other women. Sangeetha bypassed all the usual expectations, for she liked men of neither the South Asian nor the Caucasian persuasions. Sangeetha likes Black men and Latino men, and in the South Asian community of Los Angeles, this was simply scandalous.
Under the name Lady Shriya, Sangeetha began working in adult films, and soon garnered a cult following. Playing up her exotic beauty and South Asian heritage, Lady Shriya portrayed a temptress on screen, and the fan base simply ate it up. The adult film industry has a lot of white male and white female actors, but only a few Blacks, Latinos and Asians. There were no South Asians in the industry aside from legends like Pakistani born former porn star Nadia Ali and transsexual porn star Salma Marapana, the lady who astounded many by doing porn under her own name.
"Sangeetha, under the name Lady Shriya, you will be a pioneer for South Asian women," Dick Frost said, smiling at the short, curvy, dark-skinned cutie. Dressed in a black leather jacket over a red turtleneck shirt and black jeans, Sangeetha "Sangeetha" Serasinghe looked simply gorgeous. They were in Dick Frost's office in the Van Nuys area. If I were still in my prime I'd totally do her, Dick Frost thought, admiring Sangeetha's thick thighs. He was going to put Sangeetha/Lady Shriya to work, and fast...
"First of all, I'm Sangeetha, and Lady Shriya is just a character I play, and second of all, we need to talk royalties from my DVD sales," Sangeetha replied haughtily, crossing her arms. Dick Frost smiled frostily at Sangeetha/Lady Shriya and nodded. In the old days, porn actresses simply showed up to work, and did as they were told, for they knew they were expendable. There was always a hot new gal eager to replace any porn starlet who wouldn't do what she was told...
Dick Frost knew he'd made a mistake when he asked Sangeetha/Lady Shriya to tag along and help him out with production issues on a few movies, and she began to see how the industry worked. Big-name ladies like Sara Jay, Phoenix Marie, Ana Foxx and other porn legends got producer credits and a slice of the sales for everything they put their name on. Since Lady Shriya was on the box cover for Lesbian Swirl Fest, whose star Crimson Amazon would get a slice of the sales, the upstart young starlet demanded the same.
"As you wish, my dear," Dick Frost said, remembering the days when, as a porn director, he used to tie up and butt-fuck haughty gals like this uppity Indian, no, Sri Lankan bitch Sangeetha what's-her-face. Feminism has finally come to the realm of porn, and female porn stars are now speaking out against abusive male stars and male directors, and demanding changes. Dick Frost hoped to get a few more movies out of Sangeetha before disposing of her like yesterday's takeout dinner...
"Mr. Frost, it's my career and my life, I have to do what's best for me, always," Sangeetha told her new agent and manager. The stocky old white dude with the steely blue eyes looked at Sangeetha the way a hungry man looks at fast food, and to be honest, he made her skin crawl. The City of Los Angeles was full of creepy dudes who fetishized so-called exotic women like Sangeetha yet inevitably turned nasty or downright racist when they don't get their way.
Sangeetha has experienced racism from all sides, and seen the way some people from her own community and family dished it out at others. The City of Los Angeles is a mess, socially speaking. Whites are the majority in Los Angeles, and the number of African Americans has dropped a bit while the number of Latinos has skyrocketed, leading to a lot of tension between the two largest minority groups. South Asians, a group which is poorly understood by many, have their own issues with their own people as well as others...
"Don't sleep with blacks and don't trust white people," Aunt Meena told Sangeetha, over and over, whenever she took on a new enterprise. Sangeetha found her aunt a bit too close-minded and old-fashioned, especially since she ran a convenience store in a neighborhood full of Afro-Caribbean immigrants. Most of Aunt Meena's customers were from places like Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad, Saint Lucia and the like, and she took their money but deep down, despised them.
