The Frozen Smile

1974, Mahuwa township in Rajasthan’s Dausa district. Sandy summers bear-hugged the desolate landscape. The desert around the district lay sun-baked. Scattered thorn trees and bushes stood in pools of hot eddy. Prickly branches arrayed in battle-march column guarding their stony ramparts of leaves against unrelenting sunrays ever eager to bring out more evaporation and thus more life out of the desert vegetation. A lovely flower blossomed in a dusty alley in a lower-middle-class locality. It was, however, a doomed flower. The social and the caste soil under its soft, innocent stem did not blend, although its roots tried its flowery best to gather around a fistful of the two constituents.

The young couple’s sin was laid in the open under the scorching scrutiny and hateful sandy sighs. The boy belonged to a relatively lower Bairwa caste; the girl to a relatively higher one—Gujjar. They were minors. They knew the consequences. From skirmishes and slaps inside their own respective walls, it could flare up to engulf the two communities involved. Sarla was particularly scared. Couple of years ago, there had been an honour killing for the same crime as hers.

Caste panchayats pleasantly smirked at such on-the-spot judgments. During those days media hardly existed. There were no women’s organisations, social activists, and human rights groups as are safely patronised by the Women’s Commission during present times. Whatever we can imagine as a semblance of women’s rights and their protection must have been in embryonic form. Reactions against such inter-caste affairs were taken as acts of unavoidable desperation to keep the social fabric intact. So even police preferred to ignore such cases; sometimes they even covered up if it involved influential local families. So the scorching sands contained the unknown sand grains of those unfortunate lovers—mostly girls because the stigma was bigger on their faces—who, somehow, suddenly died during nights and hurriedly cremated during the late hours of a mutely, conniving night. Hence, eloping was the only escape option. Thus one night, Ramesh, his life stuck in his throat, eloped to save his and his flower’s life.

“My widow aunt Saraswati, who is a domestic help in a big house in Delhi will help us,” he tried to calm Sarla as she shook with fear and wept.

Reaching Delhi was the longest journey of their lives. “We will somehow hide in this crowd and eke out a living,” they sighed with relief looking at the capital crowd.

Saraswati lived in a filthy shanty neighbourhood. Ramesh’s uncle had died five years ago after a struggling matrimony lasting the same number of years. Just after his marriage, the adventurous labourer in him had prompted him to seek greener pastures away from the barren land. These five years saw drunkenness, domestic violence, arrival of a bony girl, bone-breaking toil, loneliness and uprootedness in the merciless, uncaring crowd. Then from the path of misery he was swiftly plucked by death as he fell from some few-storey high scaffolding and died on the spot.

A young widow mother, and on top of it appearing exquisite in her Rajasthani rustic charms, she was very easily preyed upon by Imarti Lal. A pock-marked wretch, and an acquaintance of the diseased man, he hurriedly sneaked in with natural ease taking advantage of her helplessness. He arrived as a selfless sympathiser to begin with; got her the job of a domestic help; brought gifts for the sickly baby girl; raped her after a month feigning almost innocence and helplessness all the while; and proposed marriage after another month. She reflected over this and found no other way out. There was no past or future to do calculations about. The sands of Rajasthan appeared too far and uninviting, even scornful. She thus consented, or rather gave in.

Then the real drama of villainy started. Addicted to visiting brothels he led the parallel life of a pimp, slowly acquiring mastership in his modus operandi. He arrived late, accompanied by hollow, consumed drunkards whom he introduced as his friends and partners in trade. After some days, she too was leading the gutted parallel life of a domestic help during the day and a paid woman during the night. Soon afterwards the sickly girl child died. She too would have died of grief, if not for Rizwan, a young and handsome pimp under whose swarthy muscular body her wheatish sweat-soaked body writhed in love, pleasure, and painful groaning. He had sex with her not as a customer, but as a lover. She could feel it. From among the many men who were intimate with her, she felt only Rizwan inside her, rest of them just extracted their money’s worth from the impassive dummy. They even complained to her husband that she did not open the full treasure trove of her body to them and Imarti Lal had whacked her many times for this. But now she felt far less insulted, for she herself let out long chains of unbearable foul words, firstly with a bit of momentary hesitant tongue, and later with perfect ease—a thorough-bred sex-worker in the making.

Having served as a field worker in the industry, gaining valuable experience in striking deals, fixing up rooms in guest houses and hotels, her husband now thought of moving further in running a more lucrative prostitution racket. Saraswati helped him under the garb of many pretexts which continuously, invisibly kept on sending subtle sexual advertisements that were easily smelled by the brothel birds.

Ramesh was struck by the change in her manners. His first memory of hers stretched back to that diminutive, cowering, almost child-bride ten years back. He was seven then and thought she was only as old as him. The little bride was casting curious looks around. Next time he saw her five years back when they were in the hometown for a relative’s marriage. Despite the trials and tribulations of the gripping urban struggle, she then appeared a fully blossomed female, who at least had the consolation of a husband and a child, if nothing more.

But now the change was striking. Once all the inhibitions are cast out, sex-workers take life head-on, without caring a damn about any social expectations based on norms and beliefs. Flesh trade is such an overpowering system that centuries-old female inhibitions and shyness are blown into society’s hypocrite eyes. Words, behaviour, and gestures acquire such grotesque, pugnacious tidings that it strikes the so-called cleaner society, shaking them up from their so-called better claims to status. Dress, make-up, hair do’s, and language make them super-females who can beat any man in wanton display of aggression and domination.

Once she started carrying that typical air around her, she had to quit her job meant for a more decent society. She carried her identity too strongly now, so entry in the so-called good houses was not welcome. It happened just a month before the eloped couple landed there. Rizwan, Imarti Lal, and Saraswati were on the threshold of a more enterprising trade. Their eyes said that they were more than happy in receiving the fleeing couple.

Ramesh was confused and surprised when a wealthy-looking gentleman addressed his aunt as Sarkia and she responded in an unheard of coquettish way, in a peculiarly flattering manner overarched with Rajasthani-accented Hindi. It was her new brand name. Her over-coloured and over-done lipstick and bright silky red salwar kameez appeared to tell him many stories on the very evening of their arrival, but then greenish traditional tattoos on her wheatish forearms and around the corner of her eyes dispelled the uneasy thoughts and the minor couple fell into a fatigued sleep.

Asharfi Lal, a notorious pimp from Mumbai’s red light district visited them after a couple of days. Surely, some significant upswing in the hosts’ business was in the air. His middle-aged decimated, tobacco chewing face spent in illegal trappings of helpless, fleeced, ignorant, sold, and cheated females across India, glowed as he saw the wild, fair, sharp-featured, glowing with the peak of youth countryside beauty.

Sarla looked really beautiful. Her supple body galore with abundance of fresh youth. A fountain of fresh water in the land muddled with impure rivulets carrying social sewage. In the obnoxious, dimly lit corridors of flesh trade, the people involved took pride in counting ‘the buds violated for the first time’. Though the male in him was almost satiated—or it had been broken like a criminally overworked pack mule—it still hissed in its full hunger when it saw the opportunity to register a fresh name in the dark book of prostitution. In the lewd language of the trade he conveyed his dirty intention to his beetle-nut-chewing hostess, her lips smiling with coquetry to appease this important cog who could help them in rising further in the illicit trade. The trade was rapidly growing in the areas along the highways. The booming transport industry with its over-strained, overworked, frustrated, tired, and fatigued truck drivers, helpers, cleaners, hotel and restaurant servants were being swiftly sucked into the momentary dives of forgetfulness in the pool of paid sex.

Taking a full bright rose from the hair knot at the back of her head, Sarkia threw it at his greedy lips watching the girl passing out of the tiny door of her dingy best room. He in turn took the gold chain off his neck and gently held the bait before her greedy eyes.

“Full purchase! She will serve better than here,” he gloated and explored the possibility of striking a deal.

“You want to open the cork, drink the wine, and sell the bottle to cheap fucksters! For this pittance I’ll just allow you to open the bottle, have a few hasty swigs and leave the rest with me,” she mocked at the uncontrollable urge in the greying pimp.

The deal was struck. The fate of this new entrant was sealed. At night Rizwan took Ramesh out on the pretext of attending a marriage function. “It’ll ease your spirits,” he slapped his shoulder in a friendly manner. Immediately after they departed, Sarika laid snare. First she cajoled, used all fleecing tricks to get her consent, but when the dumbfounded girl did not budge, she and the old pimp dragged her into the dark, dimly lit cellar where her helpless screams had no effect on the crowded, noisy, unconcerned world outside. Old Asharfi Lal was drunk and raped her with the fury of a young body.

She and Ramesh had made love during their minor courtship back at the home place. They had taken the risk of their lives to satiate the love–lust-born storm clouded with infatuation of the age. These were the moments they had stolen from the unforgiving society around. The ratty society has a special knack to smell out such lovers’ rendezvous moments and their natural, innocent curiosity into each other’s anatomy entailed a painful rumble in the bowls of the social cloud unleashing a storm. They somehow saved themselves from the torrential fury but landed here into a bigger trouble. The world is never sufficient to accommodate the love cooing of hearts in conservative societies. She was just fifteen.

It was a night of nasty parallels for the couple. Rizwan got Ramesh drunk. When his suspicions, hesitancy, fears, and cautions were untied by the fuming spools of alcohol, he introduced two semi-naked middle-aged whores (who were not left with much of business) in the sphere of his boozed up spirits and closed the door behind him. Even tipsy to the core, Ramesh resisted, as a love-bound man, committedly tethered to the peg of faithfulness. “What will Sarla say?!” it flashed in his mind as the expert sex-worker tore through his clothing. The huntresses were too insistent. The prey was just left with a portion of his physical and mental strength. They succeeded in raping him. He vented out the full fury of his youth in wrathful convulsions as a punishment to them as well as himself.

Next day, the couple’s dead cast eyes stared at each other. Without speaking they sulked indoors for a couple of days, almost in mourning. They had lost a significant part of their respective identities and were well aware of the gravity of their loss. One is most often forced to accept the circumstances. The rarest of the rare have the strength of breaking the circumstantial shackles. Like a game of dice we accept the favourable throw as well as the worst one in utter humility. We might shout with both joy and sorrows. We might sulk. But we accept and reconcile nonetheless.

Once initiated into the tribe, the love and affection of those around doubled. During this period of reconciliation and coming to terms with reality, they shut themselves in the cellar she had been raped, first wept in their bitter position, and when the tears had dried up, they embraced and kissed each other softly as a souvenir of their innocent love when they exchanged pleasant glances, whisked away letters, blew flying kisses, and thought about each other almost 24 hours a day; when a smile, a soft word appeared the most valuable thing in the world. When the shattered glass pieces of their dream palace pinched their young bodies with desire and lust, their fatigued and defeated selves ran to take shelter in each other’s flesh with a beastly urge. They made love as many times as their bodies allowed. It went on for a week in the damp and dank light in the initiation cellar.

“Want to sap all juice of each other before seeking greener pastures!” Rizwan winked at Sarkia.

She in turn pouted her lips and gave a lusty pinch into the groins of her paramour, “Hope it will not be the case with us!”

As it happens in the free-wheeling corridors of a sex bazaar, the parasitic undergrowth of desire, love, lust, survival, pleasures, and pains get embaled in a wenchy heap covered with a slutty, stained rag. Time being a great healer Ramesh made love to her aunt, saying it was the price she had to pay for getting them this nice job. Rizwan enjoyed with Sarla prattling she was the most beautiful among all the women he had slept with. Even old Imarti Lal encroached in sometimes mischievously. Ramesh and Rizwan both enjoyed with the new ones. Sarika too engaged with new customers sometimes. Imarti Lal would pay both Sarla and Sarika to arouse him.

In those days sex trade faced little hindrance except for the bitter pill of social ostracism. But who cared—those who poked their disgusting noses at them, their own linen lay scattered on brothel floors. There was no scarecrow of the police. Police? Yes they troubled them sometimes but it was basically meant to increase the local police’s share in profits. And the trade and its profits just boomed unprecedentedly. Deeply foraging into the society from their pathetic positions at the social fringe, forgotten in their native lands, they facelessly encroached into the estranged morals. After a decade and half’s struggle Sarika ran a posh brothel in the red light district of GB Road in Delhi. Imarti Lal died at the cusp of his glory. His frail heart overcome and over-shoved by deeply rumbling pangs of hunger, alcohol satiated, and over-fed on performance-enhancing drugs as he desperately tried to make up for the money paid to a foreigner lady of the trade in a cheap guesthouse in Paharganj.

“Tried to drink from a dead, dry well and thirsted himself to death,” his 42-year-old brothel-owner wife just evinced the littlest of interest in the tragedy and gave a rare cold sigh.

Her face tried to contort and put up a wifely show of sorrow. The heavy mask of cheap cosmetics got a strain, opening a few lines and cracks to allow reality sneak out a bit. In quick desperation she overpowered the urge to be a moaning wife. With pangs of jealousy she stared at the far fresher face of a decade younger Sarla. “Perhaps they do not nibble at her face, as they have done on me over the years,” she felt the unavoidable feminine pang of jealousy. It was instinctive female reaction, otherwise they shared a cordial relationship, almost that of a mother and daughter. As a rule, Sarika treated her girls very well.

They moved through the first half of the nineties smoothly. In the drunken haze of loose morals, wanton gestures, lewd stares, illicit relationships, and rawest humour that gripped the naked flesh on GB Road, Rizwan and Sarika’s brothel dangerously came close to being the best in the business. Even after ‘standard deductions’ their girls and pimps were left with decent money. He moved in a car now; was treated with respect in society for money gets you respect and more importantly he maintained a second rung of high society girls, educated, smart and sophisticated, to cater to top-class clients. It included a failed heroine, some struggling models, a couple of ladies from the theatre scene in Delhi, three college girls, and two over-flying airhostesses. Here, costliest deals were struck in the lobbies of posh hotels.

You cannot hope to rise forever. Fortunes fluctuate. His rival brothel owners got him murdered. Profits were going too far and deep one-sidedly. Throat slit, his rotting body was fished out of the dark polluted waters of Yamuna. With him died the pale glow of the hopelessly burning candle of Sarika’s life. In the buzzing merciless dehumanised sex bazaar one still catches at the strands of love and relationships, even if these are available in strained, grotesque form. In her case it meant Rizwan. She was now cast into the open sea of loneliness, her anchor gone; life became purposeless. She just could not come out of the pit this time.

As if nursing some inexplicable hate towards the brothel owner, a new arrival sighed, “Now she’ll go mad. I saw it. She depended too much on him. He meant everything to her.”

Sarika just sulked silently, never wept, stopped painting her face to pretend youth and went further and further into the pit of doom. Sarla did her best. She was more of a manager of affairs and allowed only ‘important for the trade people’ to touch her. She was no longer just a body of flesh rolling in stained bed sheets. There is a thread of relation management between a brothel and the clientele. The chance arrivals of some frustrated outstation male, with almost finished pockets cannot put a brothel on a speedy track of prosperity. Well-pampered regulars having fat pockets do the job. With Rizwan it was gone, and so did their dark prestige and prosperity.

Moreover, the second half of the decade arrived with all the wrong messages for sex trade. An idealist horde of Bharatiya Nari Sudhar Sabha was frequently making acrimonious inroads into the sex-workers’ dungeons along the ill-famed road in the national capital. Most of the times they preached safe sex and sex-workers’ rights. The utmost un-conservative sex trade was deaf to the clarion call. Their preaching was sometimes interlaced with talks of rehabilitation and alternative professions. They distributed some sewing machines and parroted many a word before the girls regarding the necessity to get education. How can a huge ship carrying socio-economic filth be stopped from drifting into the abyss by such light, flippant anchorage. Subdued by such a mighty clean voice from the first-rate society, sex-workers too felt duty bound to do something for society. Rubbing shoulders with such clean folks, who were there for higher purposes, Sarla after a long time realised she too was a human being like anyone else. She had come to feel like a totally different species, something grotesquely dehumanised and caricatured. AIDS was becoming a huge scarecrow. Hellish talk of the afflictions born of the deadly virus was sending goose-bumps down the spine of even the most confident and regular brothel hunters.

Feeling like a normal human being in the company of activists, much obliged Sarla presented their leader a fat cheque meant to help them in their charity work. It was her moment of glory when she presented the cheque to the cleanest khadi-clad gentleman she had ever met so closely. It was a momentary flash of dignity, pride, cleanliness, and being human like anyone else around. Driven by its pleasant repercussions she even arranged a supper for the workers, which they were forced to accept, not being able to say no and make the inherent repulsion evident to stand as a contradiction to what they preached. Stretching each and every sinew of her stigmatised self to make the function as socially clean as possible, she had chicken soup, chicken biryani, fish cuisines in the non-veg section and sweets, parathas, coffee, chocolates, kulfi in the veg section, completely forgetting in her zeal that these clean idealists are not supposed to touch meat. With some hesitant mouthfuls they formalised the occasion by taking some items from the cleaner section. Their embarrassed looks dividing the chasm more and more. Eating with prostitutes! Even the hardened idealist in the leader could not ignore the buzzing scarecrow: AIDS...HIV...these heavy words struck at his rattled senses. During those days the disease was more maligned than the causes. There were huge misconceptions including the one that one can get it even while eating with the afflicted person.

The sex industry got a mighty shove by the rumours and talks of a pandemic. A team sponsored by United Nations Funds for Women went scurrying. They spread hair-raising information about the most lethal disease, dumped condoms at every nook corner to save the clean world from these live-forms of death.

“HIV is a virus that causes AIDS...spreads through unprotected sex...females are 2.5 times more susceptible to the disease...no vaccine to secure life...drug abuse...sharing needles...etc...etc...”

Sarla’s courage gave in. She was hesitating in going to be tested at the first referral unit-cum-antenatal clinic sponsored by AIDS Prevention Society and a foreign NGO. Many in the locality had been tested positive. Red alert had been blown in the red light district. Prevalence rate was dangerous. Her head was dizzy with fear. When life is at risk, all other tensions of this world do not mean anything. All we want is just life, nothing else. Spectres of death in all its wanton forms loomed in her head. A group of work-broken farmers, their faces weather beaten, lustfully came begging at their doorstep. They had sold the harvest in the grain market and had plenty of money in their pockets. She knew they had money but turned them away. She had decided to take all her crew to the clinic.

“The sluts, the whores...even they have the choice of choosing by looks!” one rowdy farmer spat.

The results came. They felt like celebrating. Only the latest arrival—who had been least in the trade—was tested positive. The poor girl fainted after hearing the sure-shot chimes of death right in her ears.

“Strange...but it’s just luck...ours! Just lucky so far not to have a virus-ridden customer. This poor one unlucky to have one,” one was heard sighing in a mixed cauldron of emotions.

Ramesh? Haven’t we forgotten him? Well, nothing to tell much either. The glory of his days ended before it could really start. He had spent most of the days as majority of the inside men of the trade do. He never showed the promise to rise high in the profession. Just remained there like a pet dog. He and Sarla had come too far from each other, even though they shared the same place. Pathetic in shape, decimated physically, tobacco chewing and drinking, their relationship had come to be that of almost mere acquaintances since long.

The unfortunate new girl continuously mourned her fate, while her colleagues consoled her with some unease from a distance. A thick wall now separated them. Circumstances had forced her into that ghetto just three months back. From a village in Uttar Pradesh, she had gone intimate with at least a dozen boys and men by the time she turned sixteen. However, the pining won’t go away. Her helpless nymphomania was well diagnosed by a widow from the village who led the double life of a nurse (in the eyes of the villagers) and a lady of trade in the city. No need to elaborate further how the poor girl’s journey was facilitated to this end.

“Oh the filthy scum...only he has given it to me! All my lovers in the village and customers here were in pink of health,” she arrived at her desperate conclusions. “It can only be he. He injected me with foul grease!” she ran towards to the top-storey cubicle assigned to Ramesh. She came out dragging the weakling. “A dying proof of what can this disease do. Oh, only if I had the guts to refuse this skeleton!” she roared and could not control the fits again and fainted.

Fully convinced of the truth of her charges, other girls felt relieved for they felt a strange repugnance to him and could not remember having done it with him.

“So the dog sometimes went outside. Oh we hardly thought him to be capable of walking even. Got his blood spoilt with some sick bitch and then fouled this young filly!” one was heard commenting.

“What is this noise about?” the lady of the house muttered in a strangely resigned tone.

Each passing day brought new strands of grey hair, more wrinkles, and further debilitation of her brain resulting in lesser control on what she said, heard, and did.

A shocked Sarla dropped back into her chair. Reminisces of that night more than two decades back flashed across her memory vividly. A terrible pang of pity, even for herself, gripped her. She silently cried and sobbed watching his weak body cowered in a corner. He appeared so poor and helpless. Later they took him to the clinic. Yes, he was positive! HIV-positive people are the unfortunate lepers of the new age. The information of every new case shook the still remaining frail foundations of their loose self.

The grief-stricken girl almost went insane. She thought of committing suicide. But her boiling guts, vigour, and anguish blunted her instinct to do so. She was burning with anger and agony. “The bitch in me will kill as many dogs as possible before I die,” she was rapidly losing control of her senses and ran away from the brothel.

“Throw the sick dog out,” most of the girls were adamant.

Just then a spent middle-aged man barged in. “Will have to use a condom,” the lady of the house announced even before he could say anything.

“Why that would be even worse than masturbation. Scared of AIDS, eh! Why worry about your wretched life if I do not care about mine that is far better,” he was fully drunk.

They threw him out. The business was suffering. The crowd in the ill-famed quarters had distinctly thinned of late. Delhi was a bustling metropolis crazily spellbound by the Western values for inspiration. To have a sexually consenting girl or boyfriend was becoming the norm. It too must have hit the industry.

There was no need to throw the sick man out. The pandemic was in its initial stage. Overzealous support organisations, government agencies, and NGOs condescendingly accepted the slowly emerging cases to test the efficacy of their drugs and management of the patients. The world was lost in the myth of this new challenge to the medical science and everybody appeared puzzled and scared. The man with imperilled longevity and suffering with almost every step was picked by understanding volunteers to the newly created AIDS patient ward of a charitable hospital. There he got sweet–sour company of fellow sufferers and consoling sympathising doctors. When they spoke to him in a normal, unchanging, un-mocking tone, the old man in this middle-aged dying body looked at them with the bright eyes of a child. And there he lived believing in the generosity of God and success of doctors. Ignorant of the biology of his disease that was eating his immunity like termite eat dead wood, he had every right to believe in curability till his senses were struck too weak to think and feel anymore.

With some little moisture in her eyes, Sarla wrote him letters, and sent him gifts sometimes. She still occasionally remembered those old times. She was now being helplessly carried by the current of sex trade in the endless sea of life. Some inner glow was still burning in a clean corner of her conscience many layers below the frivolous make-up of a wench. Subconsciously driven by this semblance of truth she started to spend much of her time in serving the old lady of the house who was rapidly losing and surrendering to premature ageing. She had virtually no control over her thoughts, words and memories. Their business went downhill. Girls arrived hesitantly and surefooted left quickly for greener pastures. From the past savings they had enough to survive. Sarla had attended school till the eighth standard and then had eloped. She now scribbled words with the mammoth efforts but with the eagerness of a child.

Their house was losing its sheen. What else can happen to a whore house where instead of cheap, sleazy sex magazines and books, you have works on AIDS comprising all the information and prevention of the deadly virus and the disease; the owner of the house ill; and the second in command going out of the ways and means of a paid woman?

She took the old patient to a neurologist. Pondering over the brain scan, he evaluated:

“Don’t call her a bit mad! Please! She is mentally ill. It is an illness like any other, with the difference that in her case it affects her brain. We call it dementia,” he tried to explain.

He prescribed anti-dementia drugs; requested the far younger looking woman to make the mentally ill lady take care of her needs daily so that it might muscle up her neurons. Even their conversation became an exercise module in which Sarla repeatedly put questions, providing multiple clues while the invalid fidgeted with every movement and word she spoke. Her sympathetic touches, drugs, and exercises showed few distinct results and it was proven that the old lady was not completely mad after all. Struggling with her jumbled thoughts, memories, and activities, she raked up some clues to her identity.

“Who are you and why do you constantly nag me?!” she would grind her teeth one moment. Later, staring in the kind eyes of Sarla she would suddenly remember her as the eloped girl who had been helplessly tossed at her threshold. “O the poor girl! So they won’t let you remain in your village!” she would hold her against her bosom, totally oblivious to the story further on.

Sarla was now in the whore house to help her see such moments, haphazardly, disarranged, but at least belonging to the old lady’s life. On very rare occasions when Sarika called her by name, she thought she had been rewarded. Why was she so sincerely serving the old lady? Well, some basic things are too deep to be ruffled by the superfluous rut of life however sleazy it might be. These may lie dormant but spring forth whenever chance is ripe. Sarla too possessed such natural lotus that sprouted forth through the muddy waters of prostitution. She accepted whatever ray of light was filtering through the gutted by-lane of the sex bazaar.

Despite her best efforts, the old lady forgot her name completely, lost her ability to speak in a couple of years, and then further survived for another two like in a coma. They were not serving as a brothel now. She decided to serve till her death. Problems galore, as they naturally should when you live mis-fittedly in a sex bazaar, not leading a life like those around you. But once the body has been cut, bruised, making one less than average afraid of situations, then it becomes immune to further cuts. She thus braved these challenges, like a lady of her trade should. She knew that the good thing she was doing should not turn her into a cowering female, so her tongue snapped like a rattle snake to ward off any endeavour to take advantage of their changed situation for profit.

As was inevitable, the old lady died leaving her almost all alone in the bustling whore house. Her mourning tears for the diseased, whom she had literally served like her mother, further polished that goodness under her stigmatised skin. Around this time elections for Delhi Assembly were announced. The Election Commission ordered that even the sex workers are to be registered as voters for the upcoming elections. The Electoral Registration Officer of the Paharganj area accompanied by a much amused staff and committed social activists toured the area. For a fortnight she toiled with the field staff to get the sex workers enrolled as voters.

The process however faced a nagging problem. Most of the brothel owners had no lease agreement with the girls. Some had not even the ownership proof of the place. So they were apprehensive of getting their girls’ voter identity card, giving the place as their address. Sarla decided to get as many girls enlisted on her address as possible. She held the papers of ownership, inheriting from the old lady. However, missionary zeal was met with an opposition and boycott. She was living like an outcaste now and she and others knew that their ways had parted on the ill-famed road. They warned her of dire consequences if she did not move out of the place—not because of the fear that she had a choice now and break free of the shackles, but because she could decide not to be a whore now. In her early forties now, she sold the property and moved out of the filth with a decent purse and walked in a restrained, shy, unresolved manner. It was like walking on an alien planet. It was like she was learning to walk as a woman with a new identity. Almost three decades of fleecing, flattering coquetry had seeped into her skin and she knew the challenge of forcing herself to change her ways of dressing, looking, gestures, and words to fit in the clean society outside.

Hiring a room in a respectable neighbourhood she optimistically looked at the new dawn from her balcony. She was pondering over her future. But fatigue and drudgery of three decades yawned within and she went inside to lie restfully on her clean bed again.

“It’s another start for me. But this time I won’t slip!” a wave of determination swathed her in a fold of contended sleep...after so many nights. After three decades in fact.