Gulam Mandi E-Book

Nirmala Bhuradia

• Herausgeber: D.K. Printworld
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 487

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Gulam Mandi revolves around the life of its two protagonists – Kalyani and Janki. It makes one travel through the horrible, fraught and turbulent world of human trafficking wherein innocent children and women are entrapped, sold and forced into flesh trade by a well-knit network of mafia gangs. In its quintessential, the story brings forth the myriad colours of human nature – hate, rejection, betrayal, apathy, ecstasy, opportunism, pure love, sex, expectation, trust, empathy, hope, rejuvenation and so on.

Kalyani, a beauty queen, fears ageing and childbirth and is jealous of her own young daughter. Janki, who comes from an oppressed class and had a turbulent childhood, faces rejection from a few people, but finds shelter in Kalyani and Gautam, but, of late, destiny plays its tryst with her life. Finally, she finds solace in Mohan.

It portrays the uneven world of the exploitors, who usurp and violate the victims, and the victims who are the sufferers and cannot normally escape the clutches of their perpetrators to rebuild their life. It also brings into limelight the pity world of hijras, the victims social apathy and prejudice, and their sexual exploitation at the hands of many. Here is a clarion call to the society on the ills that it has been afflicted with!

About the Author

Nirmala Bhuradia
Nirmala Bhuradia (b.1960) is an Indian journalist and writer who writes in Hindi and English. She has published nine books in Hindi. She is Features and Literature Editor and Syndicated Columnist at Naidunia, one of India’s most widely read Hindi daily. She is a winner of many prizes and awards. She can be contacted at .

Leseprobe

About the Book

Gulam Mandi revolves around the life of its two protagonists – Kalyani and Janki. It makes one travel through the horrible, fraught and turbulent world of human trafficking wherein innocent children and women are entrapped, sold and forced into flesh trade by a well-knit network of mafia gangs. In its quintessential, the story brings forth the myriad colours of human nature – hate, rejection, betrayal, apathy, ecstasy, opportunism, pure love, sex, expectation, trust, empathy, hope, rejuvenation and so on.

Kalyani, a beauty queen, fears ageing and childbirth and is jealous of her own young daughter. Janki, who comes from an oppressed class and had a turbulent childhood, faces rejection from a few people, but finds shelter in Kalyani and Gautam, but, of late, destiny plays its tryst with her life. Finally, she finds solace in Mohan.

It portrays the uneven world of the exploitors, who usurp and violate the victims, and the victims who are the sufferers and cannot normally escape the clutches of their perpetrators to rebuild their life. It also brings into limelight the pity world of hijras, the victims social apathy and prejudice, and their sexual exploitation at the hands of many. Here is a clarion call to the society on the ills that it has been afflicted with!

About the Author

Nirmala Bhuradia

Nirmala Bhuradia (b.1960) is an Indian journalist and writer who writes in Hindi and English. She has published nine books in Hindi. She is Features and Literature Editor and Syndicated Columnist at Naidunia, one of India’s most widely read Hindi daily. She is a winner of many prizes and awards. She can be contacted at <[email protected]>.

Gulam Mandi

Gulam Mandi

A Throbbing Market of Sex Slaves

Nirmala Bhuradia

Cataloging in Publication Data — DK

[Courtesy: D.K. Agencies (P) Ltd. <[email protected]>]

Bhurāṛiyā, Nirmalā, 1960- author.

Gulam mandi : a throbbing market of sex slaves /

Nirmala Bhuradia.

pages cm

Novel.

Also published in Hindi.

ISBN 9788124609736 (paperback)

1. Human trafficking – Fiction. 2. Prostitution –

Fiction. 3. Indic fiction (English) I. Title.

LCC PR9499.3.B48G85 2019 | DDC 823.914 23

ISBN: 978-81-246-0973-6

First published in India, 2019

© Nirmala Bhuradia

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission of both the copyright owner, indicated above, and the publisher.

Printed and published by:

D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd.

Regd. Office: “VedaœrÁ”, F-395, Sudarshan Park

(Metro Station: ESI Hospital), New Delhi - 110015

Phones: [phone]; 2546 6019

e-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.dkprintworld.com

Foreword

Gulam Mandi, my novel on human trafficking, has already been published in Hindi. Here is an earnest attempt to reach out to a wide audience having its English version. I would say “version” since I did not translate it by putting the Hindi manuscript alongside. Rather, I recreated or rewrote it, following the same sequence of events and the same plot in mind, with only a few changes here and there. My guru Adrian Khare helped me to a great extent in picking up the threads, polishing the language and removing glitches that came to his notice.

Gulam Mandi would mean a market where some unfortunate human beings are put on open display to be picked up as slaves. Living at the mercy of their masters, these men and women would be made beasts of burden or prostitutes.

If, we, the people of twenty-first century, believe that we have left behind this agony of the Middle Ages, we are mistaken. In reality, the practice is still prevalent, in different hue and shade. Of course, it is banned across the world, at least in legal parlance, and it is beyond one’s imagination that people of flesh and blood, like us, could be put on display in a bazaar. The poor, vulnerable and gullible people are still lured, cheated, trapped and forced into slavery. The only difference is that their perpetrators, while at large, operate elusive.

The business of slavery goes on so subtly and secretly that one cannot see it in open. This modern-day business is popularly come to know as “human trafficking”. Of this business, sex trafficking holds a huge sway in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, coercion of a person, below the age of eighteen, is induced to perform a sexual act. Also, the recruitment, harbouring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for labour or services, using force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery come under the label, human trafficking.

Governments world over are trying to fight this malice, each one in its own way. I came across one such initiative when I visited the US in 2006, on an invitation by the US Department of State under the International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP). That year, the subject of study under the Program was “trafficking in persons”. The IVLP, launched in 1940, seeks to build mutual understandings between the US and other nations through carefully designed professional visits to the US for current and emerging foreign leaders. With this objective, naturally we were introduced to several policies and strategies to prevent and actively combat “trafficking in persons”. To help us acquire a background on trafficking issues we were taken to four cities in the US: Washington DC, Seattle, Dallas and New York.

In Washington DC, we were taken to the US Department of State. Here we had appointments at the office that monitors and combats trafficking in persons, the Bureau of South and Central Asian affairs, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour. The journey continued with the visiting of the US Department of Justice, particularly its criminal division and civil rights division. Then were the visits to Department of Homeland Security, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and various other government offices. One day we had an appointment with Mr T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asian in the Amnesty International, which was followed by the visit to the US Helsinki Commission and the office of Senator Patty Murray.

Senator Murray, a campaigner for the rights of women and families, had helped write and pass the historic Violence against Women Act, 1994. In Seattle, we met former state Senator Jeralita De Costa and even a detective, Harvey Sloan, of the Seattle Police Department and other police officers. In Dallas, meetings were arranged with not-for-profit organizations that help immigrants and refugees of victims of human trafficking, the local media, Dallas Police and others. In New York, meetings with organizations like Sakhi for South Asian Women, Safe Horizon and Human Rights Watch were arranged. Even the United Nations’ office in the Empire Estate building was on our agenda, where we visited the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) office to discuss agendas like women’s empowerment and gender equality. A senior advisor on child labour in the child protection section of UNICEF discussed international efforts to combat child labour.

In Dallas, when I conveyed to the police department that I intend to work on a novel on the subject of human trafficking and wanted to visit a strip show, they took me seriously. The next day, they arranged for two guards to accompany me to a joint in Dallas.

Naturally, during this visit to the US, I could gather crucial information on the “trafficking in persons”. I was observing the scenario of human trafficking in India for a long time and in 2005 had attended a national seminar on Trafficking Women and Children organized by Madhya Pradesh Police. So the visit to the US served as a trigger and my novel had moved from just taking notes to writing properly with a plot, scenes and sequences. But it did not mean that some academic book on “trafficking in persons” was taking shape using all the references at hand. On the contrary, the references remained only at the back of mind and fantasies began to weave the story or a stream of stories on their own around the scaffold, by the characters that had confiscated my keyboard. So what I present here is totally a fiction, of course, with a tint of truth in it.

Right from my childhood I had wondered as to why there is a separate community of hijaras (eunuchs) in India! Why is it that they cannot live and mingle with the mainstream? As I grew up to a teenager, some more questions began to prop up. Why are they treated with dreadful contempt? Why are they marginalized? Why are they social outcastes who are forced to live a life of penury in ghettos? Is it their fault that they are born with an ambiguous gender status? Is it a crime to be born that way? If not, why are they not treated well? The third gender people are also human beings with flesh and blood and they deserve to be treated with the same dignity as others. In order to raise these issues I have portrayed the characters of hijaras in this novel. I was careful enough not to give an account of hijaras from our side. For this it was important to know their minds, their psyche, their environs, their way of life. For this, I visited their homes, conversed with them and accompanied them from place to place. The story of kinnars runs along the main story and ultimately gets merged with the main theme.

My story has two protagonists, Kalyani and Janki. The resultant story takes us mainly to a turbulent world of human trafficking. But many other issues are interwoven with the main story: like a society where the caste system is still prevalent, untouchability still persists, life of a beauty queen, who fears ageing, and is jealous of her own daughter who is at full blossom. Then there is this girl who comes from an oppressed class and faces rejection from some people who believe that they belong to a higher stratum than her in social status. India’s ancient caste system, ingrained in the social framework, is thus exposed.

Then there is Meera, a female elephant and the world of elephants and people from exotic India, who understand animal language.

However, as an unknown author once said, people like a story and like it being told well. It is in the telling of the story that the writer’s entire resources and skills to be employed. But it is ultimately left to the readers to decide whether a real story has been told really well.

Nirmala Bhuradia

One

Sticking her tongue out, the woman closed her eyes. Jamunalal brought a cobra, wound tight around his wrist, close to her mouth. In response, the cobra angrily inflated its hood. Jamunalal, as if waiting for this moment, with a quick blow, struck its head with a pincer, annoying the snake even more. In a fit of rage, the hissing cobra embedded its fangs on the woman’s tongue.

“Aaahh ...!” She unleashed a soft cry, in pain and ecstasy, and put her tongue back into mouth. The cobra too withdrew springing back to its position around Jamunalal’s wrist. The woman dragged her feet unsteadily toward a nearby bamboo chair. Seconds later she began muttering, though she could not continue it for long. Her head was spinning and she could do nothing but bend forward onto a wooden desk.

“Next ...!” Jamunalal called out to the waiting people.

Jamunalal lived within this shanty-gully, yet maintained a luxurious lifestyle. He occupied two rooms, side by side, one of which indicated opulence and the other, sheer deprivation. The interior air-conditioned room had a TV and a refrigerator, with vinyl flooring. The outer room was ill-furnished in comparison. It had rough mud walls and a low roof, supported by wooden beams. This was no irony at all. The rich–poor combo was very much intentional, a deliberate design. The luxurious room was for personal use and the farm hut-like ambience to lure customers who sought romance in rustic charm.

Snakes of various kinds hung from the wooden poles in the hut, as if the latter were serving as mall windows or showcases of this “snake bite” bar. Serpents were on display so that customers could see for themselves and choose whether they would like to be bitten by a fierce viper, a bad tempered cobra or a simple natured green water snake. Like the snakes of various species, an eclectic mix of people also filled up this place. A white German with green marble eyes stared at the yellow mud wall. A Madrasi with his lungi hitched up the knee-line, scratched his calf; a young lad skimming through a glossy, girlie magazine waited for his chance. He stared unblinkingly at a picture of a girl in lingerie.

A snake charmer squatted on the floor near the door, keeping beside him three baskets, each full of coiled snakes. He awaited his turn to meet Jamunalal, keeping a hopeful gaze on the man, so that as soon as Jamunalal finished business at hand, the charmer would be able to bargain for a good price and sell the snakes he had captured from the woods.

A middle-aged woman, wearing a low-necked blouse, persistently rubbed the portion below her neckline. Two youngsters, pointing mischievously at her, passed remarks, “Would she like to be bitten over there?”

They were close to the truth in fact. Everybody did not want to be bitten on their tongue. They chose to receive it on their palm, heel, big toe or even solar plexus. But Kalyani was firm on being bitten on her tongue alone by a poisonous snake whose potent venom could nullify the poison which life had injected into her.

For long Kalyani had been thinking of visiting Jamunalal’s gully, but was not able to, because she feared entering an obscure, mysterious lane which she had to cross before making her way to this one. God bless Anguri, whose help ultimately made this possible. Anguri knew the topography of the place well and was totally devoid of fear. Kalyani simply held her hand and went along.

Anguri was not an old friend. Kalyani got acquainted with her fairly recently when Anguri, along with a few members of her hijara fraternity, came for a ritual dance performance in the neighbourhood, on the birth of a male child. Though this also was almost a ritual that they come uninvited to celebrate such an occasion and perform a dance which is hardly rhythmic. This time also they were hopping and jumping while trying to sway their hips, singing in their masculine, frog-in-the-throat voice. To add music to it, they were thumping the floor, clapping hands in a way singular to hijaras.

After this self-proclaimed felicitation programme, they asked for a hefty amount of money as tip, which the family refused to give.

The verbal tussle was growing with every minute, with the hijaras demanding a whopping 5,000 rupees for their “precious blessings” and the family not ready to give a naya paisa above 100 rupees. Both remained unyielding and adamant. At last the family said a firm “no.” Seeing they outwitted, Anguri took her last card out and said defiantly, “Meet our demand or else ... watch me with my skirt up!”

This took a serious turn. Here Kalyani had to step in.

That day the problem was solved with Kalyani’s help. Instead of calling Anguri a shameless, graceless whore like others would have in such circumstances, Kalyani came forward with an offer of a peaceful solution. She called for the best crockery from her home and served tea to Anguri and the others. Anguri was overwhelmed with the respect of the sort she could never have seen or imagined in her life. That was Kalyani’s first introduction to Anguri. (Though on another occasion Kalyani met Anguri at a place completely unexpected and was taken aback to see her there.)

Kalyani was doing a documentary on AIDS. In the AIDS ward of a government hospital, she encountered Anguri and was shocked to see her there.

Let’s set aside that incident for now. Coming to the present, where Anguri is guiding Kalyani through a mohalla maze with narrow lanes. It is so much like a honeycomb that neighbours in facing buildings can dry their clothes on each other’s balconies merely by extending their hands. Windows and balconies are so close and within reach that people easily gossip and exchange goods. Houses seem to be internally connected to each other with staircases running through one house and leading to the next. Joint roofs make it easier for an aspiring thief to steal into any house. But because of the mohalla’s nature, even the boldest burglar would not dare set foot here.

In this interlacing web of abodes, Anguri took Kalyani to the house of Rekha Albeli, from where she would lead her to her own household, as if a direct entry was not possible.

Rekha Albeli was sitting on an extension outside her home. She was constantly swinging her legs while munching on a corn cob. When Anguri introduced her, “Meet our Kalyani didi, she wants to visit our home,” Rekha Albeli stopped biting into the corn and stared sternly at Kalyani.

Kalyani folded her hands in a namaskar and smiled meekly at Rekha Albeli who paid no attention and resumed swinging her legs and eating, all the while paying total disregard to Kalyani.

Kalyani now entered the house. Inside, in a passage, there were two or three hijaras chopping vegetables for their next meal. On the right of the passage was a room with a parquet floor, giving the impression of an outsized chessboard. Across the room were the stairs running upward. These were almost lost to sight. The mysterious atmosphere was enhanced by a heavy aroma which seemed to descend from the stairs. As Anguri and Kalyani started up, one of the eunuchs called out from where she was sitting, “Put on the light.” Anguri came down a bit to switch on the single naked electric bulb. Before this, there was no hint of such a light. The stairs without the light gave a mystery-shrouded air to the murky surroundings, wrapped in the heady aroma.

As soon as the bulb illuminated the expanse, there came in sight a tomb covered with a green silken cloth. Going along the flight of stairs was a whitewashed wall with a niche in which the tomb was placed. The strong aroma which was descending from here was of incense burning near the tomb. The former guru of the Albeli clan was buried here.

While Rekha Albeli’s former guru had been laid to eternal rest in a grave, her present guru was taking a siesta in her room; so Kalyani and the others went ahead without even meeting her. After crossing a small open air passage, they came to another flight of stairs, this time leading downward. As they started descending, Kalyani heard a loud cawing, as if of crows, approaching them. She looked up suspiciously toward the sky. But the sky was free of any crows. Puzzled, she continued the journey downward. After a few steps came a right turn. A few more steps and they reached a courtyard; its flooring was uneven with broken tiles at places revealing the ground below. A water-filled earthen pot was resting in a corner, near which lay a decaying wooden chair, alongside which were five cages placed in a row. The caw-cawing was rising from here. There were black ravens, not crows, kept in these cages.

Surprised, Kalyani threw a quizzical glance at Anguri, to which the latter answered, “Don’t stare at me like a buffoon. My guru owns the ravens, these are her dear pets.”

“But why ravens only ...!” asked Kalyani.

“So what do you think we are going to raise? Mynas and parakeets?”

This caustic comment came from another hijara entering the courtyard from the inner gate. The hijara continued, “Crows are the ones who belong to us. They are our true kin. We raise them with love and care. We don’t despise them like you do. ...”

“This is Kalyani didi, Hamida!” Anguri tried to introduce Kalyani to the new entrant. But Kalyani didn’t pay much attention to the introduction and tried to pitch a crisp retort to Hamida. “You are forgetting that we offer delicious kheer-puri to crows during ’shraddha’,” replied Kalyani.

“That’s it. You yourself have spilt the truth, that you give them kheer-puri ‘only’ during the Shraddha period. That is your selfishness. You want to appease your ancestors and disincarnate beings. But otherwise if a crow sits on your head, you will call it an ominous portent and carry out sacred ablutions. Your approach is the same toward us,” said Hamida, “we can sing, dance and get the neg for blessing a couple on their marriage in your family but if we cross your path on an ordinary day, you will look with disdain, calling us ‘hijara’ in an abusive manner,” said Hamida with their signature clap.

This deliberate sound of a clap made by Hamida was meant to emphasize that “We know this gesture of ours is a point of ridicule for you.” Through her body language, loaded with sarcasm, she wanted to say, “We know you call us scruffy, unkempt hijaras behind our backs – the word hijara itself is unwholesome for you.”

Closing the topic, Hamida then went toward the exterior. After she had gone, Anguri hastily grabbed the opportunity to clarify and apologize on Hamida’s behalf. “Kalyani, please forgive Hamida for her sharp tongue. She has turned bitter over the years because she has had to face a lot. You know, misfortune befalls us wherever we go. Our lives are a multitude of agonies; storms brewing within us are always on the verge of breaking out.”

Kalyani responded with a faint smile. Along with sympathy for Hamida, a nagging fear began to gnaw on her. She was apprehensive – was it alright for her to enter this den? Had she breached the line which common perception had drawn between Kalyani’s world and that of Hamida’s? Had she dared to wade into shark-infested waters? As rumours have it, hijaras are people with serpentine intelligence, whose cunning is familiar with magical manipulations! They even go to the extent of emasculating young boys to increase their numbers.

“Would you like to see our temple, Kalyani?” Anguri’s voice disrupted her train of thought. Amazed, Kalyani repeated what she had just heard, “Temple? Really? Do you have a temple?”

“Yes, we have a temple and stupid people like your Anguri believe in God also. Go and see more proof that we too are people of flesh and blood; we are human beings.” The answer came not from Anguri, but from Hamida who had returned from outside.

The three entered the house together. On the right, there was a room with the TV on. A few eunuchs, with a layer of fresh green henna on their hair, were watching TV. There was a small balcony connected to this room. Two small drums were lying on the floor of the balcony. Colourful skirts and blouses were spread out to dry on them. There was a wash basin in the corner of the balcony where a eunuch was trying to slip glass bangles onto her wrist, using soap lather.

A big almirah stood along the wall near the balcony where there was a full length mirror on one of its doors. While crossing the space in front of the almirah, Kalyani suddenly saw the reflection of a woman with a double chin, eyes drowning in black patches and permanent furrows across her forehead. Kalyani almost shrieked in horror, but managed to stifle the scream. It was her own reflection, which saddened her to the quick. This abrupt invasion of reality reminded her of the purpose of her coming here. With this realization, a knot of anguish arose from the pit of her stomach, darting through her system; it exploded in her heart with a mute boom. These days, a thousand such burning orbs blew up inside her, over which she had no control. In order to douse them she had come to this gully. Maybe the fatal venom from Jamunalal’s snake bar would stem the bloody grief inside her – or perhaps act as an antidote for her present toxic state of mind ... that is, before the next orb arose in her stomach. ... Anguri’s voice diverted her attention, “Come in, Kalyani.”

Kalyani went in. It was a damp room with a single closed window. An earthen lamp barely lit the room. A wooden bracket was nailed to the wall, on which was placed a framed photograph of a deity riding a rooster. Before the photo, in a glass chalice, lie a few small, sugary chironji balls as an offering. The photograph was adorned with a red hibiscus flower, probably as part of some ritual.

“Bow to Devi. She is Bahuchara Mata, our family goddess,” said Anguri to Kalyani in a voice which sounded more like a command.

The moment Kalyani arched her neck in a move to bow before the Devi, she heard a heart-rending scream coming from somewhere within the house. Frightened, she quickly stood upright, now completely alert. The shrieks mounted and after a few high-pitched screams though, the voice descended in pitch; the sharp yells gradually becoming feeble, slowing down till they eventually ceased.

Anguri tried to console Kalyani, “Don’t be afraid dear, she is Rani, one of us. She is not well and is in chains. She screams when she is in this condition. Otherwise, she is friendly and kind. She would have offered you a cup ofcardamom tea had she been all right.”

“Rani? Who is Rani? Where is she from?” enquiring, Kalyani saw her past in flashbacks. Her own father was chained to a pole ... the very day little Kalyani was to give a school exam. To fare well in exam, she needed to keep her mind unruffled but how could she? There was this disturbing reality. That morning, in an uncontrollable frenzy, her father tore off the clothes he was wearing and was scurrying about the house totally unclad.

Shame, pity, helplessness ... she could not describe her feelings and looked at her mother who was silently crying. Tauji eventually overpowered her father and struggled to push a kurta over his neck, wrapping a towel around his waist. Taeeji was holding a cane in her hand, in case she had to hand it over to her husband. With the help of the domestic help, Ramjiram, they fastened him to a pole in the veranda. But he stopped screaming only when Dr Gaud came and gave him an injection. Now came the most difficult part which Kalyani had to face; watching her father defenceless, with beseeching eyes looking at the people around him.

After a short pause, Rani started screaming again, which disrupted Kalyani’s train of thought, at the same time triggering an intense surge of emotions inside her as waves of stress washed over her. Her father’s illness was suddenly a fresh wound again and filled her with great uneasiness. She felt a shortness of breath, palpitations and tingling in her fingers. But this was a state of being which she would rather not share with anyone around; for fear that people would stigmatize her. After all, she is the “daughter of a father who was considered mad!” She remembered well when, for the first time, she got a panic attack like this and someone very close to her told her in mock seriousness, “Oh, genes are at work!” Though any normal person, in the event of a stressful situation, could suffer such an attack.

“What are you thinking about?” Anguri broke into her thoughts. Before Kalyani could say anything, Anguri herself answered her question, “So you are thinking about Rani na? Right! She has lost her mind due to the trauma she had undergone for a long while. My guru brought her from Moradabad.” “Moradabad” was said in a tone as if her guru had brought a lota from Moradabad ... “Come, I shall introduce you to my guru”, Anguri suddenly said.

Kalyani and Anguri came downstairs again. Across the broken tiled quadrangle was a room with a creaky wooden door. Inside on a cot was sitting the hijara guru who was one hundred years old. The guru held a rosary in her hand, her lips moving with the beads.

“Kalyani, touch her feet, be blessed and book a good boon in your name! A hijara guru’s blessings are considered very auspicious, particularly when she is a hundred years of age. You know, people throng here to get her blessings.”

Perhaps the guru was hard of hearing, but was smiling back at them; having lip read what they were saying besides their gestures.

Kalyani almost lusted for the guru’s blessings if such there be a description. She desperately needed blessings – let them come from anyone. So, for her, this one was particularly priceless and to earn this privilege, she bent toward the guru’s feet; albeit from the corner of her eye, she was trying to find hijara peculiarities in the guru’s attire. But there was none. A flat chest below the blouse made it clear that, like other hijaras, the guru was wearing no false bra beneath the blouse. There was no sign of pan chewing or lipstick on her lips, nor was she wearing earrings, bangles or even a necklace. She wore a drab sari, with the pallu covering her head. Despite this, she was not looking like a model grandmother in Indian society, but more like a grandfather in a dhoti next door.

After being blessed, Kalyani left the place and took the route down Jamunalal’s gully.

Two

Jane could guess where she was right now. In Texas, in a bar room, dancing almost in the nude! Was this the American dream she was longing for? She had no respite to even think about her situation but was destined to glide and flutter incessantly, like the other girls, who were gesticulating on their platforms, set close together. Their bodies writhing to thunderous music under flickering lights. Jane was tired but could not stop. Bald bear-like Mac’s red eyes were scaring her.

Wicked, heartless, hirsute Mac was standing a little away from the platform where the girls were performing – leaned against the bar, closely watching the girls. He had a few goons spread out in the big hall. All the girls were not dancing; a few were serving at the bar. They were almost naked like the dancers. But there was a difference. The girls, who were above twenty-three, were serving at the bar while the teenagers were literally “made to dance.”

While dancing, Jane had a fleeting glimpse of Su-Bin who was merely fifteen. This Korean girl knew no English. Actually, on the stages there was a riot of races. There were girls of various colour lines – African-American, Mexican, Asian and European, but the men who drooled lecherously over their naked bodies were of one race – villains! There was no bias. Every girl was merely a piece of flesh for them. The irony was that the girls were made to dance to lure these bloodhounds. The way they were moving and shaking their bodies could not exactly be called dancing. Their movements imitated love-making. Lotharios hilariously hooted and whistled at this voyeuristic meal. Some of them tried to get near the girls. But even getting a little bit closer to any of the girls or touching them in passing, required a fee. A man, like a dog, sniffed a half bent girl’s buttocks for a second and had to stuff dollars into her belt. Another man took his lips close to the bosom of a girl and retreated immediately, not before slipping a few crisp dollars into the band around her thin waist. In the middle of the performance, a girl came down the platform to the audience and sat down on the lap of one of the drooling viewers. The man rewards her by sticking some bills into the thread around her midriff.

This practice had given birth to an altogether new development. Gradually, the bands around the waists of the girls were becoming festoons with dollars. But the girls were not going to get their hands on these dollars. Instead, the bills will be marked for the goons, hustlers and pimps ultimately filtering down to the mafia running the show.

Jane and the girls were wearing four-inch high stilettos. Dancing with these shoes for never-ending hours was an excruciating experience. But they could not refuse. Any protest would invite further torture by their handlers. Adela from Mexico was running a fever for two days. She was totally fed up with wearing stilettos. She said “No!” Her refusal enraged Mac, who twisted her arm savagely to the extent that brought on terrible pain and she produced colourful expletives in Spanish. Mac’s reply to this was a brutal pinch to her ear and he informed her about something in Spanish. This silenced her immediately. Probably he had threatened to harm her family which she had left behind in Mexico. That was his ploy. He would never chance to torture a girl in a way that could disfigure her body, which could destroy a girl’s physical appeal, making her less worthy. He would rather apply emotional pressure on her.

Adela and two other girls from Mexico crossed the border illegally with the help of Mac’s gang who helped those using fake documents, evading guards and even supplying transportation. Lara, a woman from Mac’s gang, used to come to Adela’s town in Mexico. She coaxed her into joining them by painting a rosy picture of opulence and opportunities in the States. “You will be the Golden Goose of your family. Not only will you save them from penury, you will even provide them with luxuries.”

The idea was good enough to lure Adela. In fact, she had no qualms doing any work if she earned dollars in return, whether it was dancing, prostitution or anything else. But when she saw the true colours of her “sweet Lara” of the past, she became apprehensive and lost trust in her.

Now she was not sure whether this vixen, or the gang she was working with, was sending money back home. Adela was worried that her “consensual exploitation” was worthless.

The coquette Lara was standing at the bar, engaged in bantering with a reed thin man. Her cackling showed up her black gums. “Why could I not see her black heart beyond those black gums,” Adela thought, “I was terribly naïve and trusting. ...”

Trusting ... to a lethal extent. Wasn’t that the thing with Jane too? She trusted JoJo. She thought Kalyani was jealous of her!

Three

“The truth is that I was getting jealous of Janki,” Kalyani said to herself as she walked toward Jamunalal’s gully. “But this was not the kind of jealousy that people ordinarily feel toward others when the later grows in maturity or prospers.”

Looking back, Kalyani knows those pangs had not grown from malice. They were rather like Kalyani once became jealous of her own self!

This was a new phenomenon that the once narcissistic Kalyani had become self envious. The microcosm of her own images, which used to fill her with a sense of pride, was beginning to push her into an unnamed dread! Her own photographs were giving her heartburns! Posters of the film Humsaya – the film she starred in – seemed to mock at her. The film was never taken out of the can, even as Kalyani’s run of luck seemed to dry up.

Despite this frustration, Kalyani preserved the relics with great care. Photographs taken during the shootings, stills from the movie, its posters and, snaps from her special photo session for the portfolio – all are now adorning the walls of her study-cum-living room as a part of an aesthetically done decor.

Two of the walls of this room are chosen for the display of her photographs; on the third wall is hanging an oil painting which Kalyani herself had done.

Kalyani did not paste her pictures casually on the walls, but had carefully put them up under the supervision of a well-known interior designer. The choice of colour for these walls is in accordance with the mood of the snaps. Carefully selected colours are made to complement the pictures. Contrast and symmetry are in aesthetic collusion. The layout of the snapshots is such that a few are presented in a collage, while others are dispersed separately on the walls. If a photograph shows a close up of Kalyani’s plump-lipped pout, the other covers her large bewitching eyes, shot from very close. A still from the movie, taken in long shot, shows Kalyani happily roaming in a picturesque valley of a hill station – Manali. Placed above this is another still from the film, taken in mid-shot.

Pictures selected for display on the second wall are the close-ups of her mobile face, showing every change in countenance. If in one picture Kalyani flaunts her white teeth in a frozen lightning smile, in another, she has her hand under her chin, wearing a serious expression as if pondering over something. In a comparatively smaller snapshot she is simply smiling, while in the other, she seems to be in a pensive mood. A medium-sized duo-tone photograph shows her sticking her tongue out as if she is trying to make a child laugh!

A very large close-up of her face shows a solitary, tear-like drop of translucent glycerine, which allows her flawless, exquisite complexion to be seen by the onlooker. The close-up is so sharp and aesthetically right that the tear appears to be a glacier! Behind the transparency of this see-through artificial tear one can get a glimpse of the unblemished, clear skin Kalyani is blessed with. No wonder that these pictures have been so close to her heart all these years.

Looking at her own photographs for minutes has been a great passion for her till now. Though many a time she had rankled and resented the fact that her producers prohibited her from giving any press interviews before the release of the film. But the film was never released, therefore, she had lost the opportunity of getting publicity to be realized. Many of the posters, pictures, snapshots and other publicity material were prepared by the producer himself, but could never be launched.

Despite this ever looming trace of resentment, Kalyani never allowed these pictures to be moved from her sight, rather she developed a sense of pride every time she looked at herself staring back from the photographs. Looking at the beautiful girl in the pictures had been an absorbing passion for her.

But now, Kalyani had increasingly begun to see this fetching seductress in the pictures as not herself but someone else. She had started growing envious of the young and beautiful girl looking back at her from the snapshots. Burning jealousy was troubling her.

This was not the only thing. Much more was changing within Kalyani. Once as free spirited as a bird, Kalyani was now becoming a stereotypical self-conscious woman. Her growing insecurity was making her somewhat superstitious too.

Now here was the Kalyani who now was changing her spots and was ready to meet a Kapaldarshi Baba, in Jamunalal’s gully.

Going by hearsay, Kapaldarshi Baba is able to read and tell one’s future by merely looking at the forehead as if the forehead is a television screen, where a coherent train of future events of one’s life is running.

Four

When Kalyani was leaving for Kapaldarshi Baba’s kuti, Anguri made a suggestion that she would take any red flower as a gift to Milarepa, the Kapaldarshi Baba.

Why red only, Kalyani wondered! “Go and see for yourself and you will know why,” Anguri said with a mischievous smile on her face.

As Kalyani entered the kuti, she was astonished by its curious setting. Milarepa was wearing a red dhoti and a matching red jacket. His tresses, beard and whiskers were all red, not henna crimson but deep red, as if washed in blood.

Kalyani soon found a corner and sat down on a mat which was also red. Once she made herself comfortable and poised for a while, she began to see more reds in the room.

Walking into the room were four or five disciples of the Baba. They too wore red clothes in sync with the setting. Though in a dire need to stand out sparkling among his apologists, the Baba’s clothes were given a different cut altogether.

It was like a scene in a group dance from some Hindi film in which extras wear clothing that is one of a kind. The protagonist, on the other hand, being the main dancer, wears apparel that sets him apart from the others, both in cut and colour. This gives him highly individual characteristics and makes him the focus of everyone’s attention.

Kalyani remembered a dance she performed in her film Humsaya where she wore a sky-blue gown.

The others in the group wore knee-length saris of the same hue. She was the mermaid in the scene ⋅⋅⋅ the extras were fisherwomen. During the shooting, while the song was being filmed and moving into the stanza white smoke from a fog machine billowed across the stage. From its midst Kabir the protagonist emerged. In the kutir too, Kalyani seems to see a similar scene. The only difference this time is that the smoke is not white, but tinged with red.

As the smoke settles down, a casket is seen. This casket is also red and it has been placed before Milarepa. Within this casket there is a man lying very still. When Milarepa asks questions to the man, his lips begin quivering. It is only then that Kalyani realized the man is not dead!

The walls of the room are cream coloured, with red stripes. The ceiling is red. Milarepa is sitting on a low wooden platform, which is also red. The small carpet on which seat is placed and the bolsters against which it rests are a uniform red. Scenes of the Himalayas on the wall are all framed in red. On a red stand next to Milarepa is a selection of fruits, all in red: two red apples, a bunch of red cherries and two red plums. From the low red seat, where he sat, there is a red carpet which has been unrolled similar to those that are rolled out for visiting VIPs. There was a red thread around his neck from which hung a same coloured talisman; a red thread was wrapped around his right wrist. For Kalyani this scene became a matter of slight amusement. In her mind she imagined a red draw string hanging from Milarepa’s red underclothing. But her amusement turned to astonishment when Milarepa began to speak with the man in the coffin whose tongue was also red.

Milarepa in a deep, hoarse voice called for his speaker. Hearing this, the dwarf, clothed in a red surplice got up and quickly made his way toward the coffin holding a red-covered book. Meanwhile, a woman came and seated next to Kalyani. In a low voice she asked Kalyani if she had received her token. To this, Kalyani asked “what token?”

“If you have a token you would know where you are placed in the series of patients. You have come to have your dreams interpreted, your forehead read or your shadow measured?”

Hurriedly, Kalyani answered, “any of these, I have no idea of anything, but tokens, numbers and registration, this sounds like a doctor’s clinic.” “Exactly, you are here to get rid of your maladies. Milarepa is going to treat you. Today, he is first going to ask about your problems. If he believes that you can be cured by dream analysis, you will have to keep a ten-day record of your dreams. You will go to sleep only after taking one dose of his red herbs. If he decides to read your forehead then you will have to cover your brow with red sandalwood paste, given by him, at least for an hour. And if he thinks measuring your shadow will be the proper thing, then you will have to come tomorrow at twelve forty-five sharp, near the red wall in the backyard. ⋅⋅⋅”

“What melodrama?” Kalyani thought. But this was one thought. Another thought was in a flux with this red flow; she was quite excited at the prospect of being analysed by Milarepa’s method.

“⋅⋅⋅ my wife was shuddering. I could see her cracked heels trembling violently ⋅⋅⋅ no, no it was not her heels, it was a wall with cracks ⋅⋅⋅ the cracks were widening with each shudder. And so! she started trembling so violently that it ⋅⋅⋅ brought about an earthquake.” This was the elf reading out the dream of the man lying supine in the casket. Kalyani couldn’t get to know the analysis Milarepa had made of the dream. The same woman came calling her after sometime and informed Kalyani that it’s all right if she could not decide for herself, whether she wanted to be analysed through her dreams, forehead reading or by shadow measurement. Milarepa himself would decide on her behalf what should be the method of diagnosis.

Now Kalyani sat cross-legged before Milarepa. The guru, in a manner as if trying to assess something, touched Kalyani’s ear, then her forehead, tip of her nose and then removed his hand and brought it back to his lap. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and went into a meditative mode. After a few minutes, he opened his eyes and fixed them on Kalyani. Holding his gaze on her he asked Kalyani:

“Now, lady, let me know what your sorrow is?”

“My sorrow? My sorrow? I have no sorrow that I can put my finger on ⋅⋅⋅.”

“Then what ⋅⋅⋅?” asked the guru.

Kalyani answered, “I am sorrowful, but ⋅⋅⋅.”

“But what?”

“I have no such sorrow, yet I am feeling such as if a single pea is hurting me though it is under seven mattresses.”

“A single pea?” Milarepa asked sarcastically, “laced with the incredulous ⋅⋅⋅”

“Yes indeed! A single pea beneath seven mattresses is what is hurting me ⋅⋅⋅”

“ohhhhssss, a single pea! A red pea, a pea which is red⋅⋅⋅. And this hurts you ⋅⋅⋅!”

Milarepa then broke into Homeric laughter. His laughter caused people present to turn and look at him with startled surprise. Milarepa, meantime laughing all the while, applied red sandalwood paste to Kalyani’s forehead.

After reaching home, Kalyani opened the paper pouch to see the red herb Milarepa gave her. It was a finely ground red powder with a pungent smell. As Kalyani brought the powder up to her nostrils, its peculiar odour reminded her of Rani Lantarani. The latter got her rich name from her habit of spinning tall yarns. “Gapodi” bua had another facility – she kept a small container in her blouse pocket which contained red powdered tobacco, strong enough to make the nostrils tingle. This was Rani Lantarani’s nasvar. Just before she would begin to unleash her storytelling, she would open her little magic container and take a sniff of the powder. She would inhale it and grandiosely pass over her head. Then she would sneeze and it felt (to her) that all the doors of her perception had been opened. With this, she unravelled stories like a seasoned globetrotter.

“Gapodi bua, you have never been to a school, have never travelled in a train or crossed the boundaries of this city, then how come you know so much about the world?” you ask her. She will tap her index finger on your head or hers indicating, the cosmos! Our brain is not merely the size of a small hemisphere. It is the cosmos.

All three worlds lie herein. It is a suprafilled universe of your dreams, desires and phantasmagoria.⋅⋅⋅

So, that red powder used to take bua around and across the globe; she could trot the universe riding on the winged horse of her own waking hallucinations.

Bua whiled away her time gossiping, taking substantial pinches of snuff and consuming rotgut. She would sit in the kalali with menfolk and relish sips of the liquor, intermittently popping hot, spicy chana-chat with red chilli. Smoking bidis was another avocation. Lantarani was honest and courageous, something which her husband was not. Time to time she would unleash a steady barrage, of choicest “blessings” on her no good, freeloading husband. She would openly thrash her brother Ghunghru too, who was a master in sleight of hand. Nothing in the house was safe from his nimble fingers. As for employment, it was below his dignity to work. But bua had clean hands and she would never let herself to get into the smallest debt. It was in her lot to work and earn for herself. And this gave her the permission to talk authoritatively even when the son of the proprietor was present.

This reminded Kalyani of her parent’s home known as the Lord’s bungalow. When the original inhabitant returned to England following India’s Independence, Kalyani’s grandfather bought the bungalow. His lordship had long gone but the people continue to refer to it as the Lord’s bungalow. The design and layout of the bungalow was typically English in style. Attached to this was a piece of land which could not be called a garden, it was really a farmland on which the Englishman had planted not just fruits and flowers but also vegetables. Mango, jamun, tamarind, kabit and plums grew there. This avid sahib also grew figs and mulberry with equal fondness.

During summer, gulmohar trees would appear covered with a fastidious crimson. In winter, the aroma from the rose garden would blow through the house with their royal perfume. An ancient banyan tree, which had found itself on the wrong side of the fence, sheltered a small temple of Shiva which the Laat Sahib had not removed. At the entrance of the farmland, there was a grove of neem trees within which was a sweet-water well. There was a canal running from this well, which went down, irrigating the rows of splendid rose bushes. Amidst this hybrid burgeoning “garden” the lord thought it fit to set down a small crop of sugar cane.

Sometimes he would grow local vegetables like gourd, cucumber and green gram. He, himself, would abstain from these, as his delicate constitution revolting at the thought of digesting raw grams. Ironically, since the sahib of the manor could not enjoy the bounty of his land, it was left to Lantarani’s mother and father and their extended family to enjoy the fruit of his labour. Fate, it seems, was kind to them. From time to time Lantarani’s father would fill a basket with gourd and sell it in the market. From say the two pennies he received from the sale, he would give one to the lord and pocket the other one. A typical example of the latter’s attitude toward money was that he would toss his “share” into his pocket and perhaps continue reading his book, lying languorously in his rocking chair.

But when Lantarani’s father Buddhuram and mother Hansiyabai’s landlord changed, Buddhuram also changed. He became much wiser. The new landlord Basahib was sharp despite his years. Besides, he had an acute knack at keeping track of every penny that was earned or spent. Realizing the awareness of the new master, Buddhuram also shifted tracks and did not give an account of what had been earned. Similarly, the basket of vegetables was now carried by Hansiyabai. She was sly and conniving and made for the market while it was still dark and Basahib was performing his morning ablution.

But Lantarani was unafraid of Basahib because she had played with him in his lap. Basahib’s son, Dadabhai (now Tauji) and with him Lantarani would play gulli-danda with gusto. One time, the sharp-edged gulli hit Dadabhai on the forehead. Dadabhai later narrated the incident to his mother, the way it had happened. This was alien to Lantarani, who thought that there was enough scope to live the incident with sufficient spice. Lantarani visualized to herself as to how she would narrate the mishap. She was dying to tell somebody and not finding anyone, the untold story seemed to grow within her stomach. Why provoke the ailment to increase? She urgently needed an audience to get rid of the growing ache. This desperation would drive her to find listeners in creatures like pigs and herons; in the immediate surroundings, riding for free on buffalo backs. Even a buffalo would do, its devil-may-care attitude would not deter Lantarani; she could jabber incessantly before the beast. Once there was demise in a family in the neighbourhood. Lantarani was called there to carry out ritual cleaning of the floor. There she was even hired for crying! This bizarre practice was a usual source of income for her! There, while sweeping and mopping the floor, she could hear the Garud Puran narrated by a pandit. An account of Garud Puran is one pertaining to heavens and hells, which, according to Hindu mythology, one has to face after death. Lantarani found it so scary and fascinating as well that she needed an immediate outpouring in front of somebody, anybody. While returning to her shanty she had to cross fields. Here she saw a scare crow and she decided that it was the one who could listen to her with an absorbing passion without being distracted! As Lantarani was growing up, many more household chores were given to her. And now she had enough people to listen to her narration.

Jane was in the process of being moved from Texas to somewhere else in America. For obvious reasons, the wannabe mafia types kept the girls on a short leash, shadowing their every move. When the girls moved, a fresh set of handlers, the crude hard men and equally rough middle-aged women, took over the job of keeping the girls on “their best behaviour.” With the change of place, these handlers would also change. But for their names and features, inside, they were all the same in doing cruelty. If we called every such man a Mac, then every woman would definitely be called a Moll, a Lara. This would make them all alike and they are all organized too. Theirs is a big network, which is involved in trafficking woman and pushing them into prostitution. This network is spread far and wide from Europe, Asia, India, Nepal and Bangladesh to Russia, Romania, Herzegovina and Latin America. All the Macs and Laras are well connected with each other. Every Lara and every Mac wire rarely short circuit because of the skilled organizers. That is how transnational traffickers manage to run their shadowy business under the very nose of their own governments. Changing the locations of the victims also is an attempt to blindside administration.

Every time, Jane was made to change her place, she would also have to meet and mingle with a new herd of girls of different races. This time, the apartment in which the girls were being kept was bigger than the previous one. A wooden-floored room, in the middle of the apartment, was the one in which the girls usually slept and rested when they were allowed to do so. You could not see the clear sky from this room. It was devoid of any windows or maybe the windows were sealed. Though adjacent to this room was a staircase leading to an attic with ventilators. Beyond the stairs was a balcony with glass windows. Two guards, appointed by Mac, were constantly posted there to keep a watch over the girls. Sometimes the girls got a glimpse of the outside world through this window. During such moments they could see a small tree full of pink flowers, which, Fang told Jane, was a cherry tree.

Fang knew English. She reminded Jane of Lantarani bua and like her, she also liked to weave stories. But there was a difference between the two. Lantarani’s yarns were spiced, inflated and full of entertainment while Fang’s accounts were true and full of horror. She had one day recounted the hair-raising story of Lidia of Moldova, which Lidia herself had told the girl upon digging a little.

Lidia was rather a silent person. She would prefer to keep her thoughts to herself and let things remain unspoken. But, one day, she was utterly upset, so much so that she lacerated one of her customers with her fingernails. Her handler Mile had punished her for this by cutting KM 50 from her already meagre payment and left her to her own devices with a woolly-headed British customer who had a reputation of torturing the girls with burning cigarettes. That day Lidia went out of her mind because of that disturbing incident.

Through force or coercion, the mafia would bring in new girls almost every day, but that day the one they had brought in was merely a ten-year old kid. They had picked her up along with her teddy bear, for those special customers who relish the tender flesh of kids. Such devils pay unbelievable amount for their perversions, which they call their special choices. But this little girl was so unfortunate; they not only forced her to “serve” the favoured customers, but also the regulars. She was kept confined to a small cot in an equally small cell, her teddy bear placed nearby on a stool along with a toilet roll. This made it easier for Mile to come in at regular intervals and wipe her clean.

The child was put into this brothel for merely two days. In quick succession, she was being shifted from one place to the other, as a piece of human cargo.