Soiree On The Ganga

Lipstick, powder, mascara and kohl being applied liberally. Someone busy styling a friend’s hair, another taking a final look in the mirror. A few others huddled in a corner, memorising, reciting their lines. A harmonium, tablas, ghungroos lying all about...

The green rooms of Varanasi’s famous Murari Lal Mehta Auditorium are agog with activity on this hot, sultry afternoon. These aren’t the usual stalwarts who lend their names to Kabir Chaura, the celebrated locality of musicians where this auditorium is located. They’re members of a ‘forbidden world’, the one where men come to seek pleasure after sundown but return to scorn it at the break of day. Gaining them a measure of respectability, Varanasi played host to a two-day cultural event, organised by ngo Gudiya, where as many as 114 nautch girls and sex workers from all over the country came to exhibit their musical, dancing and acting talents.

"It’s important for them to believe they’re capable of much more than just their trade," says Ajit Singh, whose initiative Gudiya is. Ajit first came across sex workers when he was a student at Delhi University and worked on an ngo project on aids awareness among sex workers. On his return to Varanasi, Ajit decided to adopt three children of a prostitute and a while later started Gudiya along with a few volunteers. In 1994, he opened an informal school in Shivdaspur. He began with 10 students, today he has a 100. Forty-six of them have been successfully transferred to mainstream educational centres. Obsessed with his cause, Ajit has also adopted the Sukha village in MP’s Raisen district, where he’s working with the sex workers of the Bedi tribe. Gudiya is but his latest effort.

Expectedly, the response was enthusiastic. The various teams practiced rigorously for their performances. "Sometimes we would feel tired and would want to take a break," said Amir-ul-Islam, one of the cultural directors of the Calcutta team. "But they’d urge us to take rehearsals till we were satisfied with their performances."

And the results showed. Performed originally for the gratification of their elite, upper caste patrons, the traditions have continued. Like the Raee dance performers from Raisen. Equally colourful was the performance by Kiran Devi’s nautanki troupe. The tawaifs, of course, were traditional court singers who’ve now taken to entertaining affluent seths and thakurs. The Varanasi meet was a recognition of the sex workers’ cultural talent, stripped of the stigma attached to their profession.

"Like our other counterparts, we too want respect," say male sex workers Nitai Giri and Dipankar Pal. "After all, we are not stealing or cheating, it is another way of earning." Both in their late 20s, they’re very comfortable with their alternate sexuality, even if the society around them is not. The childhood friend Nitai was living with walked out on him after 11 years. "Neither could I get over this betrayal nor forgive my partner." Heartbreak forced him into prostitution. For Dipankar it was the frustration of not landing a job despite a BCom degree. "I first tried hard to earn a living from my qualifications, but I was rejected everywhere for being effeminate."

Today, the duo entertain clients from all walks of life and believe their job’s tougher than their female counterparts’. "At least their clients have a place to come to; we have to loiter in parks, cinema halls, markets and the railway station," says Nitai. "And we hope such functions will help put our thoughts across. " At Varanasi, Nitai danced to Bollywood numbers, while Dipankar put up a Bharatanatyam performance.

Other performances at the Varanasi festival mirrored the sex-workers’ real-life stories. "We’re here to save other women from becoming the targets of male lust," screamed a line from a Bengali play. In yet another play, the protagonist Lakshmi is taken to jail where the inspector promises to release her provided she slept with him. Children of sex workers too did their bit. The Belgaum (Karnataka) team of children put up a special item portraying the dangerous spread of aids. A lighter moment in the play had a frustrated Yamaraj not knowing what to do with the growing cases of aids casualties. On a more serious note, another play had a sex worker’s child returning home from school and crying: "Other children tease me. They say I am an illegal child."

Life, beyond this short stint under the arclights, is a nightmare for these sex workers. Birth in poverty-stricken families, a childhood spent in near-starvation, salvation in the form of a ‘concerned’ neighbour offering a better life and the end in a red-light area. Mostly at a tender age. That’s the refrain to most sex-worker stories, irrespective of where they hail from. Gritty resistance, relentless tears and innumerable attempts to escape are all exercises in futility. Parveen Bano, a qawwali singer from Jaunpur in eastern UP, finds it difficult to forgive her mother Nawaab jaan for pushing her in this direction. She’d keep all the money and "even when I requested her for a small amount, I was badly rebuked". Thirteen long years of misery came to an end when one of her clients, Anwar, decided to keep her with him in Varanasi. Today, she sings ghazals and qawwalis for a living and has two children from Anwar. The elder child, a son, runs a three-wheeler, but her daughter gave up studies to sing qawwalis, much to Parveen’s annoyance. "I never wanted her to sing for people, but she wouldn’t listen." Unlike her, Rani Disco’s mother accompanies the 13-year-old to all functions she goes for. Her alluring gestures tempt many a male, but with a maturity belying her age, Rani smirks, "I know exactly how to keep them at bay."

It’s a future most sex workers don’t want for their children. "Everytime I requested my mother to release me, she’d tell me, ‘Remember our pride and lives are confined within the four walls of a kotha’," says Kiran Devi, who along with her sister Jai Kunwari spent most of her life as a nautch girl in the mansions of the rich upper castes. Their birth in a Beri family, a backward caste of Banda in UP, ordained their future. Things have turned slightly better for Jai Kunwari, as she executes her responsibilities as secretary of the Nautanki Kala Kendra Sansthan.

Shankari Pal, a sex worker in Calcutta’s Bow Bazaar area, is equally serious about her work with ngos to educate and uplift the condition of sex workers. She still entertains clients, though fewer in number. But she’s determined that her children (from a married client) will have none of this. They stay in a different house in an adjoining neighbourhood. Anjali Das, also from the same area, has sent her children to a hostel. Away from the filth and squalor of the red-light areas where they’re spared the scorn of society. "For their future, we’ll continue to slog in our profession," says Anita, a prostitute from Jaunpur.

Indeed away from the red-light areas, these sex workers enjoy becoming ‘human’ once more. "I can’t believe their relaxed appearance," comments Rita Dutta, who’s been working with sex workers in Calcutta for the last 10 years. Sipping coconut water, offering prayers at a Buddhist temple or just strolling through the Deer Park at Sarnath, they seem like any other casual visitors to the city. After all, as Shankari asks: "Why should we live in shame?"