Friday nights were always busy. But today seemed to be more rushed than usual. I peeked out of my window to see if I recognised anyone. I couldn’t tell. These men like to keep their faces down when they queue up outside. Most of them recognise each other. Especially the taxi drivers and rickshawallas. But they never speak. Keeping their eyes glued to their mobile phones until one of us lifts our curtain and gestures for them to come in.

I remember my first day here like it was yesterday. I was 13 when my uncle brought me to Saroja Madam. She invited us inside and gave us a cold glass of Rasna. I liked her instantly. My uncle told me she was a relative, and that she would take care of me for a few days.
As the evening faded into the night, I realised where I really was. That night, I cried and cried until, one of the girls walked in. She looked at me expressionlessly and started applying makeup on my face. I was told to get up and wait inside a dimly lit room for my first customer.

I am 17 now. And it has become much easier. There was a time when I remembered each man that walked through the creaky wooden door. I remembered the colour of their sweat-stained shirts. The smell of the cheap liquor on their breaths. But as the days went by, I started to forget. Every night felt just like the last. Just a series of uncoordinated thrusts and grunts.
I never let them kiss my lips. Saroja madam is okay with it too. “As long as they keep coming back, you can do what you want” she said to me, handing me a smoke one rainy afternoon.

Our afternoons were usually free. We’d play cards, clean, discuss Bollywood and boyfriends. “His weenie was the size of my little finger and he’d never last more than 2 minutes. That’s when I knew it was over”. Rekha declared as peals of laughter resounded through the bedroom. “I cant wait to have sex with Roshan” Amla whispered “I hope he’s nothing like your boyfriend”.
Many of the girls here sneak their boyfriends into the house when business is slow.
But I. I don’t dream of sex with the person I fall in love with. I won’t care if he has a pot belly or a small penis. I have stopped glorifying sex as an act of love. Infact, I’ve learnt that sex has nothing to do with love. I just want a man who I can fall asleep beside and not have to worry about sleeping into the next man’s time. I want a man who will fall asleep beside me on Friday nights, and not at a dimly lit brothel across the street.

But I know it is hard to find love in a place like this. “Don’t fall for his pretty words. No one wants a common prostitute for a wife.” Saroja madam told us one afternoon. I hope to be a housemaid someday, serving coffee and making lunch for a family. I think I would be good at it. I even asked the waiter at the bar beside us to ask his wife to check where she worked. But he told me they were not comfortable with hiring me.

You keep yourself at a safe distance from the brothel, look at me standing at my window and click your tongues in disgust. You see me as impure, tainted and dirty. I don’t blame you. On some days, I spend hours scrubbing myself, for reasons I don’t understand. Some days, I’d fall asleep heavy with the guilt of having sold love to someone’s son, husband, father. Some days, I look into the mirror and I see exactly what you see.

But inside this dimly lit brothel, I am rich. I look at the ironing woman across the street and realise I am lucky. That my money is never snatched from my hands by an alcoholic husband. That I am not answerable to an abusive father. That when I smile, I do it with every tooth in place.

Often, after a shower, I stop at the water stained mirror, dotted with brightly coloured bindis along the sides and look into it. Some days, I think I am quite beautiful.
So is this place. In its own way. If I had been given the choice, I would’ve stayed in my village. But I would never have known what I missed out on. Here, I have Amla and Rekha. I have enough money to buy new clothes for diwali. We eat chicken twice a week, and share roasted peanuts at Marine Drive when Saroja Madam is in a good mood. I have my own bed, a pillow, makeup and magazines. I smoke an occasional cigarette by the window on breezy afternoons.
What more could a girl ask for?

Originally published on epiphanyinthecacophony
Inspired by and photo credits to: Falkland Road by Mary Ellen Mark

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She cannot even make tea. God knows what her mother taught her, sighed the middle aged woman as heads shook and tongues clicked in sympathy. Every evening, they would meet at the grocery store before making their way to one of their houses. He would peer into their windows, watching them sit around the table, discussing recipes, daughters-in law and maids over hot chai and Marie Gold. Sometimes, one of their son’s would travel abroad. Foreign chocolate, she’d say as she handed them the box, smiling smugly. The others would reach for it, trying their best not to look impressed. He laughed.Their lives were simple. Their evenings would go by in petty conversations, only to disperse in time for their evening TV serials. Like yesterday, like tomorrow.

The old men would stop by often. Holding him while they caught their breath. He would eavesdrop on their conversations, listening to their daily diets, what their grandchildren were studying and who they thought was corrupt. He watched them silently, reminiscing the times some of them would run past him on their way to the cricket field many years back. It felt like just yesterday. His heart sank as he watched them walk away, their thick glasses seeming stronger than their fragile frames.

By 9pm, the streets got emptier. Husbands got back from work. Young wives walked fast, hoping to make it home before their mothers in laws. Mothers stormed onto the streets to drag their sons back home. He’d watch the old men go about their evening prayers and pills. And the grandmothers immerse themselves in the grievances of a richly dressed, emotional lady with perfect hair.
Every evening for years, he had watched the streets come alive, and fall asleep.

He stood still on the empty lane, watching them disappear into their homes. The lively street was cold and lonely in minutes. He was used to it. He had watched over that lane for as long as he could remember. A stray dog walked up to him and curled up near his feet, warming them a little. He smiled, watching as the curtains were drawn and lights were switched off. It was his favourite part. The town slept softly. Each of them drowned in their own escape from reality.
For those few hours, homework, back aches, dinner, acne and inflation were no longer problems. For those few hours every night, the wives, the mothers in law, the maids, the husbands, the youngest boy and the oldest man in their town felt exactly the same thing.

At 7am every morning. A little boy hurriedly copied the homework in the shaky van on their way to school. A son got dressed for the mundane job his mother was so proud of. An old man tried finding his glasses to find his painkillers. A young wife chopped the vegetables for breakfast sleepily, wishing her mother was around to help, while the nostalgia and onions competed to claim her tears.
At 7am every morning, each of them woke up to new struggles.

At 7am every morning, the street light drifted into soft slumber. Oblivious.

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At that point, it dawned on me that this was not the first time it had happened. This was not the first time someone had whistled, remarked or stared at me. I wondered why it bothered me so much now. Why I felt the need to vent to my roommate. Why it triggered such anger within me when I would otherwise have brushed it off. The answer is simple. It wasn’t India.

In India, there are two kinds of harassment, the unacceptable and the acceptable.
It all boils down to one question. Did he touch you?
No? Then deal with it. Being angry isn’t an option. You know the drill. You’ve done it a million times before. Keep your eyes on the ground and keep walking. Unless you’ve been groped, pinched or cornered, you have not been harassed. You are not entitled to feeling violated. It happens to everyone. You’re creating a scene about nothing.
He was only looking. 

I realize that on the bustling streets of India, the same episode would never have occurred to me as harassment. I would have simply walked past him, eyes on the ground, subconsciously quickening my pace till I was at a safe distance. It wouldn’t make my blood boil, ruin my day or trigger a furious rant. In fact, chances are I won’t even remember it an hour hence.

It takes a lot more to scare an Indian woman.
Lewd comments, lusty gazes and loud singing. We’re immune to it. We’ve accepted it with the same way we’ve accepted the discomfort that comes with the morning alarm, the random power cuts, the summer heat. Just another inevitable part of the day.
We’ve been conditioned to endure harassment for as long as we can remember. “Wear something proper”, “Best not to invite trouble”, “Prevention is better than cure” are mantras that have been passed on by generations of Indian women to their daughters. We’ve been taught to avoid lonely roads, large groups of men and unfamiliar areas. We look over our shoulders as we walk, stay on the ‘ladies’ side of buses and pull our dupattas over our chests on busy streets without even realizing it. It runs in our veins. It dawned on me that for the first 18 years of my life, I simply thought being teased was normal. That we have been taught to ignore, accept and endure it for so long, we no longer feel the inclination to act on it.

I realize how radically, just 2 years away from home, has heightened my sensitivity to behavior that I would otherwise never have noticed. That the natural reaction to being harassed is not to be numb, indifferent and accepting. That being humiliated, objectified and disrespected is not just another part of the day.  That if nothing else, I deserve to be angry, shed tears or atleast acknowledge that I have been wronged.

Or is the right to feel violated, a privilege too?

Originally published on epiphanyinthecacophony

Featured image courtesy Rajarshi Mitra 

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