Breaking Free - A short non-fictional piece I wrote for my creative writing workshop

* This piece is one of my favourites as it is based on a true story.

They stand with their gaudy, flared skirts in bold floral prints, hiked up to the knees, red-lipped mouths and turquoise eyes, violently clashing with their dusky skins, a short sari blouse not quite meeting the purpose, the pallu conspicuous by its absence. With oiled plaits, chewing betel leaves, the constant chewing accentuating the strategically placed mole on the corner of the upper lip, their hawk like eyes scanning the crowd. A suggestive action here, a lewd call there, an eye contact and they rush to meet their prospective clients. These mannequins line the dark, back alleys and infamous footpaths of Kamathipura.

Rupa saunters up to a pot-bellied man. His breath reeks of whiskey. His bloated guts a testimony to over indulgence in beer.

“How much?”he asks crudely in Hindi.
“Fifty rupees” says Rupa.
“Twenty?”
“Forty.”
“Twenty-five?”
“Thirty. Final”. Rupa hurries forward.

The man strides behind her quite at ease in familiar territory. They glide through the narrow, winding lanes, flanked on either sides with dilapidated chawls. Crotch – scratching men with checkered lungis and torn vests exchanged expletives with drunkards. Oblivious to her surroundings Rupa walks ahead, twisting through the bylanes. She halts before a musty, old house with a door that has been hammered with broken chips of wood at several places. Jumping over a filthy puddle infested with slimy mice, she carefully opens the door and climbs the narrow, wooden staircase. Every creak of the stairs resonates with the sound of despondency that the atmosphere reeks of. It is bright and sunny outside, inside the gloom is palpable. Morphed pictures of Bollywood femme fatales adorn the garish pink walls. Two curtains divide the room into three small cubby holes.

“Amma, you are home! You know in school we made a huge…” rambled Rupa’s seven year old daughter in delight in Hindi.
“Keep quiet Sunita! Come with me.” Rupa drags her inside the room, draws a curtain, “Sit here. Read your books and do no not step out till I tell you to. Is that clear?”
“Yes mummy”, whispers Sunita. She knew the drill well by now. She had to crouch inside the tiny space and pretend to read her school books while some horrible man on the other side of the curtain did some very horrible things to her mother. She did not quite understand what was happening, but she surely knew it made her feel strange. Like she was witnessing something she was not quite supposed to see. On some occasions she would hear her mother cry or muffle a scream and it would make her cringe from inside. At times she would feel the tiny space closing in on her, with every mute cry in the adjacent cubby hole she would feel claustrophobic, she would shove her fist inside her mouth to prevent herself from crying out aloud. At times, late in the night, when all the cubby holes were occupied by dirty uncles and women like her mother, she had to duck in under the bed and act like she was sleeping.

“Come here, beta”, called Rupa.
Finally it was over, thought Sunita relieved. She ambled over to her mother, a notebook clutched in one hand and a rag doll in the other. Mother and daughter sobbed uncontrollably, holding each other and rocking back and forth. Rupa wept for depriving her only child of a childhood, Sunita for not being able to comprehend why her mother was crying?

The next day, Rupa sat before the mirror, plaiting her long, raven hair.
“Some people here to see you Rupa” bellowed the ‘Madame’-an old crone who ensured that half of Rupa’s earnings were duly pocketed by her.
Two ladies walked in, one quite older than the other. The older one in a crisp white starched sari, salt-n-pepper bun and large horn-rimmed spectacles introduced herself as Bella. Rupa promptly recognized her as she was a social worker who had devoted her life to the shanty towns of the red light areas of Mumbai. The younger girl, lean, clad in jeans, a simple t-shirt and sneakers, was no more than 19 or 20. She twirled her hair and chewed on the top of her pencil, eyes darting back and forth , taking in everything – the flies, the half-filled bottles of local liquor and the rickety old bed, with an obscenely stained bed sheet.

“Meet Ritu, she is a student and would like to ask you some questions for her college project. I hope that is ok with you Rupa” asked Bella softly.
Rupa smiled with a sigh. Turning back to the mirror, she placed a bindi in between her thick, shapely eyebrows. So many have come and gone she thought to herself. These fresh faced youths with stars in their eyes, a notepad clutched to their chests. As much as she detested these visits, a tiny part of her actually looked forward to them.

“What do you want to know?” hollered Rupa. Her voice had a sharp edge to it. “How did I end up in this damned place? Why do I do this? Do you really want to know? Do you really feel you will be able to digest a reality far removed from your own? Then listen. In Dhaka, my hometown, I fell in love with a 30 year old man. In my naiveté I believed his promises of marriage and a glorious future in Mumbai. He brought me to Mumbai. Said I will work as a maid in a rich household. The day I arrived he handed me over to a pimp who brought me here. I bore the man I loved a child out of wedlock right here in this brothel. I was fifteen then. ” Rupa smirked but Ritu noticed that her hands shook as she tried to light a beedi. In fact she had an eerie, lop-sided grin plastered on her face that made Ritu realize that the years of pain and torture had numbed her to a point wherein her own pain possessed a sense of dark humor.

Clutching a notebook in one hand, Ritu walked over and sat next to Rupa. For a fraction of a second, Rupa saw an image of her daughter walking across the room, a book in one hand and a doll in the other. “It’s ok”, said Ritu pressing her hand over Rupa’s, “I understand it is painful for you. You don’t have to tell me if it means you have to relive the horror you have undergone.”

Rupa’s brows softened and suddenly she was crying, “The only thing that keeps me going is my daughter. The day I was dragged into this wretched hellhole I swore that my child will not live the life I did.. That she will be an educated memsahib like you, just as I aspired to be. That one day she would want to leave her amma and flee into the world wherein life will offer her more opportunities rather than merely selling her body. That is why I sell my self, I earn, I scrounge, I bear the insults, I sleep with a tormented conscience so that I can give her a decent education. Before the rancidity of this environment catches up with her, before she grows up too soon I want her to escape – escape from this dungeon. This brothel, according to her is life. I want her to realize that this is the lowest form of life imaginable for a girl. I know, with these pimps and madams roaming around the chances of her escape are slim, but I have hope, and this hope is what makes me yearn for a better future for my child. One day she will escape…that’s all I can dare to hope.”

A deep silence ensued. Ritu visibly shaken clutched her notepad and stared as Rupa went about dolling herself up for the evening routine. Her eyes fell on a bottle of pills lying on the table.
“What are these pills for Rupa?” asked Ritu.
“I am having a raging fever since last few days..”
“Then you should stay at home and rest. You simply cannot go out in a state like this!”
“My daughter’s fees are due tomorrow”. There was no anger, no pain, no resentment in her voice realized Ritu. Just plain, unadulterated HOPE.

Stepping out of the brothel, Ritu gazed up to see the dilapidated structure that belied the strength of its occupants. If there can be hope in a place like this, a place full of filth, squalor, degradation and disease, surely there could be hope for this world, mused Ritu. Hope persists where destiny and fate resists.