Originally posted by: Moontide
Guys. I don't know if this is the right note after such a mind churning maha epi and that fav GADHA VM of Aparna's. But todays episode has brought back memories and no, not just of MR=Dutta. But want to share this.
In the course of my work I have interacted with many women who we call sex workers. Have seen them up close, known them personally. Thats why, when this track started to take shape I wanted it to go deep into the seriousness of the issue. I know thats not possible, as LTL has its own flow. But seeing Dutta's inner turmoil, his remorse, his utter loathing of men involved in this business, I was deeply moved. Because in reality, even if people share Dutta's loathing, they don't have the courage to stand up, let alone wage a war against the flesh trade single (Baji included) handedly.
I remember the first time I was handed the assignment, I was more than sceptical. In a way I was more uneasy about how I will react to them, given our biases, than anything alse. Was a lot younger then. It was a meet where some of the Babu's or men who remain 'faithful' and form alliances with their chosen sex partners were to come out in the open for the first time. You see, there are men who go to a brothel for pleasure. For them any partner will do. Others seek out only one single person. At times they marry, have children. But these relationships almost never get to the stage where the woman gets any social or legal rights. For us Men who go to brothels are always faceless. That was one instance, when some had agreed to come out in the open and aknowledge their association.
There I first started to get to know these women. Teens, young girls, middle aged, and yes old. Girls from Bangladesh and Nepal. Some very pretty, some not much of a looker. But in this trade your looks are not what a man comes to you for, And the more I got to know them, the more I realised they are just like you and me. With their dreams, their talents, their opinions, their knowledge. You would be surprised how educated, well read and well informed some of the girls/women are. There was this particular middle aged lady, who had such command over vedas and puran and ancient India studies. She sang very well too. But where a sex worker differs from you and me is in the persual or realisation of their dreams. Some of you are shocked at how girls are smuggled. What is more shocking is where they land up and what they are forced to do. Even more tragic, they have no option but to resign to the forces dictating their lives. And in their daily struggle for survival, they at times actually get addicted to their work. Become nonchalant. They go past caring because they feel society has simply used them and then just forgotten completely.
Just imagine, if your body is the only means of earning your bread, and Dallas and customers and police are the sole authority to decide how that body is to be used? Here our Imagination fails miserably, right? be it chilling cold, the height of monsoon or heat, young girls caked with makeup, looking older than their mothers stand by the roadside hoping to catch a customer for her own survival. After she earns, the Dallas, the police all come to claim their share of her earnings. I could go on for ever. But the most pathetic lot falls on the children of sex workers and those women who can no longer be called young. These women have to simply depend on someone else's mercy. Some turn bullies. But they are minuscule in nos. For these aged women there are almost no options left. They turn to begging or turn house helps but almost always under a false identity. As because most of us wouldn't want an ex sex worker to work for us, right?Most suffer from chronic cases of STD. But medical help is mostly unavailable or unaffordable.
I have known children who have been repeatedly abused in all possible ways just because their mothers are in the trade. Bachchu happens to be a sex workers son. He was a grown man when I first met him. There was this whole movement of sex workers demanding workers rights. But that movement has also petered out. Another example of society and government trying to pretend these women don't exist.
For the women the stigma stays even after their deaths. But the Men who go to them daily are people who we interact with all the time. They are integral part of our society.
Sorry guys, have rambled long enough.
Pati Patni Aur Panga
Kumkum Bhagya
