After Dark

SAMIR RANJAN MAJUMDAR

When I got employment in a tiny beautiful Himalayan state capital and started living there, my friends said, “ wow, you are so lucky to live in the hills and must be enjoying living amidst the lofty mountains…”
True, living in a hill station is most joyful. Hill stations undoubtedly not only provide us a perfect gateway during the summers to escape the sweltering heat of the plains but also draw a flock of tourists to enjoy the snow during winters.
During my three years of stay in the hills, I found the hills most enchanting, quiet and serene, sky blue and clear during winter, air fresh, surroundings green, and most importantly free from the din and bustle of normal city life. The chirping of birds and the gurgling sounds of waterfalls rejuvenate our life in the hills.
During my stay in the hills, I did not see any “gherao”, long processions of people shouting slogans at the top of their voices, and loudspeakers blaring here and there.
I found that the people in the hills are very kind, hospitable, law-abiding, disciplined, calmer, and happier. The crime rate is very low and I keep my wet clothes on the balcony of my flat on the ground floor without any fear of those being stolen. Clothes were never stolen. People living in villages go out to markets without locking their houses. It reminds me of Ram Rajjya.
Even though life in the hills is tough because of rigid terrains, water problems, frequent cuts of power supply, horrible cloud bursts, fear of earthquakes, brutal winters, landslides, etc. the smile never fades from the face of the people.
All these have mesmerized me and made me fall in love with the place and its people.
But, all that met my eyes appeared to me to be not well. What gave me pain are the conditions of life of some of the young girls and women after the sun sets in. I find restaurants with bars and sing-songs-on-Karaoke facilities dotting the town where I live and other places in the state.
For writing this piece, I visited several restaurants with bars and talked to many young girls and women to have first-hand information from them about their plight and lifestyle, the factors forcing them to take up employment in bars and whether they are exploited by the men or not, what they do when some customers become violent, whether they are happy working in bars, etc.
I have found that most of the bar owners employ young girls in the age group of 18 to 20 years. I have seen many of the girls giggling with men, sharing light moments, and boyfriend clients affectionately holding the girls. Most of the girls smoke and drink at the cost of the customers.
Mrs. A, in her thirties, whom I met in a bar serving customers with drinks and food, bemoans,  “I have been deserted by my husband when I was carrying. He married another teenage girl and walked away from my life leaving me in a lurch. I did not have any means to earn livelihood for myself and my child”.
“Life without love is worse than the life of a street dog. I don’t have any dreams for myself. I just dream for my son that he will get a good education,” she added.
The stress of dealing with financial and emotional crises, sudden void of security caused due to desertion by her husband, and absence of support from relatives and friends has forced her to take up employment in a bar to meet the basic necessities.
Police have made it compulsory for all bar owners having sing-songs-on-Karaoke facilities to make the bars soundproof so that noise does not disturb the people living in the adjoining houses.
Bars are well decorated with lighting. But in a dizzying display of lights, and inside this shining behemoth, customers spend money on luxury foreign brands of liquors and costly food while the girls and women working in these bars pass their days somehow with a morsel of food.
Miss B says, “My mother expired when I was in class eight. When my Mom was alive, she used to love me and take proper care of me as is expected of every mother. I had dreamt to become a teacher. My colouful dreams were shattered when my father brought another woman as his second wife. My stepmother started misbehaving with me and after she gave birth to a male child, she even stopped giving me food. She used to force me to work as a servant. My Dad remained a silent spectator to her all these tortuous acts. I stopped going to school. Finding no alternative, I, as per the advice of one of my friends who also suffered the same ordeals, left the house at the age of 19 and joined this bar. I am independent now. I earn and spend it on myself.”
“Are you safe and secured here?” I asked.
“I have reconciled with my fate though I know ours is the profession that has been looked down upon by society”, she replies.
“I have entered this profession by choice and have no qualms about it. I don’t mind sleeping with any customer if he pays me as per my demand. You sell your brain, we sell our body. What’s the fuss about? I feel, our society is still very judgmental”, she confessedly argued.
“I tell you, most of the aged customers are well behaved. They pay me handsomely and buy me a dress”, she added.
Sliding the straps of her little black dress and curling up her pink lips in a shy smile as she watched her image in the mirror mounted on the wall of the bar, she continues “I am very careful in using condoms Saheb. You know Saheb, AIDS is a dreaded disease which everyone in our such profession is aware of”.
 “Sometimes, I feel very lonely because, you know, I cannot share everything with my loved ones,” she laments.
Miss C, belonging to a middle-class family with her father working in a bank and her mother working as a teacher in a private school, is a student studying in BA 2nd year in a local college.
When enquired as to why she is working in the bar, she replies, “I cannot afford a lavish lifestyle without working somewhere. I utilize my free time to earn some money. I don’t want to ask for money from my parents every time. So I took up the job in the bar. But I must tell you that I am very strict in dealing with customers. I do not go out on a date with any customers”.
“Many girls are virtuous and will not compromise with their dignity and stay true to their principles,” she added.
“I return home by 8 PM to avoid some gossip and speculations in the neighborhood of our home. To date, I have stopped myself from getting emotionally attached to someone”, she says further.
“Clothes and make-ups are generally gifted by my clients,” says Miss D.
“The customers as well bar owners want our body to be in shape and our pants to be skintight with hips bulging out,” she added.
“Sir, the so-called respectable women look down upon us, treat us as cardboard creatures, and pose as if they are very much superior beings. In what ways is their behaviour better than ours? We know their ins and outs. We have seen what these unmarried and even married women of respectable families are doing in the rooms of guests staying in posh hotels”, retorted Miss E.
“We also know what they are doing when they go out with their men friends for a long drive. What is carrying on behind the closed doors of high society women is also not hidden from us. The only difference is that they know too well how much money the 'man' is going to spend or is spending on them”,  she continues.
“We, in this small hill city, are far better than them. I agree, that some of us, on being lured by the glittering world and hopes of earning higher income have gone to big cities like Kolkata, Mumbai, and Delhi to serve big cities’ nouveau riche. Many of them have come back totally broken, some fully exploited, some with serious health issues and they are all now repentant”, she concluded.
Miss F says, “many of the customers treat and behave with us well. They come here, spend some hours, sing songs on Karaoke and give us hefty tips. What we could understand from their conversations is that they just want some companionship, someone with whom they can talk about their feelings, their life stories and we also found that such customers are not having good relationships with their wives”.
“Some of the visitors to bars are businessmen, engineers, lawyers, doctors, architects, policemen, and others from educated backgrounds”, says she.
“Mr. P is an erudite scholar. He is a regular visitor to this bar. We are three girls working in this bar. He treats all of us equally. He talks about various subjects. His conversion touches on political issues, movies, science, history, the Ukraine war, the Covid-19 pandemic, the greenhouse effect, etc and he can talk in-depth on any topic. Whenever we try to touch him, he cleverly moves away. We respect him and want more customers like him to visit our bar”, says Miss G.
“Mrs. M, the owner of our bar, also likes him and respects him. So all who visit bars are not bad or of bad character or come here to seduce us”, she says affirmatively.
“Sir, money is the matter which matters in this materialistic world. People will only remember me for what I have achieved at the end of my life and not for what I have done. Today, I am in a position to finance the educational expenses of my younger sister who is studying in B. Com part I. She has full faith in me. I share everything with her. As we don’t have parents, she loves and respects me as her Mom. Tell me, am I doing anything wrong?”, she questioned me.
“Believe me or not, I have not gone on a date with anybody till now though many of the lecherous customers try to seduce me, request me for a date,” she added.
I met another virtuous woman who has her husband and children. She says, “everyone in such a profession has their own problems and circumstances. I cannot sell my body for a few rupees and eventually plunge my life into darkness forever”.
“I must tell you that we rarely share our mobile numbers with every customer. I have shared my mobile number with two or three persons only after finding them to be most trustworthy and harmless”, says Miss Z.
“We come from far-flung village areas. We prefer to serve in this capital city because of payment of higher salary. We take a small room for rent and three to four girls stay in the room. We cook together, eat together and go out to our respective workplaces. Once in two-three months, we all visit our native places.  We take to our houses/native villages those of us, who left their parents out of some compulsion, This is how we are eking out our livelihood,” tells Miss X.
“Some of the customers don’t ask us much about our family or where I come from. All they ask us is our hobbies, what kind of food we like, whether we have any boyfriends, whether we can share our mobile number with them or not, whether we can go out with them on a date etc”, says Miss R.
“Some customers even offer us a salary better than what we get in the bar on the condition if we agree to work in their house or office. Some even offer employment in some offices at a salary and in a working environment better than the present one we are in”, says Miss M.
“It is not that some of us have not fallen prey to such lucrative offers. Some of our friends who went out of the state told us that at the initial stage, they took some time to adjust to the comparatively fast-paced life of a big city. Slowly and steadily they started letting go of their inhibitions and tried to concentrate more on living it large since they had got a chance. They started meeting new people, going out on a long drive, hanging out in expensive joints, and trying out new things”, says Miss N.
“It is a dark and twisted world out there in big cities and the shocking incidents of maltreatment and forced body invasion narrated by my friends make me wonder just how we humans have managed to become the most advanced and yet, most barbaric of races. But at the end of the day, those of our friends had to come back with tears in their eyes,” she told me.
In my last lap of visits to various bars, I went to a building situated about twenty kilometers away from the heart of the city. The address of this building was given to me by a girl according to whom it was a brothel.
“Brothel?”, I enquired with surprise.
“Yes, Sir. High-priced prostitutes visit this place, though prostitution is not practiced as openly as we see in Sonagachi, Kolkata, Falkland in Mumbai or G K Road, New Delhi”, she said.
It was 3 pm when I entered the building. A lady in her forties welcomed me saying “Namaste”. I reciprocated the same.
I found a big hall beautifully decorated. There were 10 tables with four chairs around each table in the hall. 7 tables were occupied by boys and girls. I took a seat at the window-side corner table. The lady came to me and sat in one of the chairs.
“Where are you from, Sir?”, she enquired.
Before I could reply, a girl came and placed the food menu on my table and enquired about what I would like to have. I ordered a chilled premium beer.
“Take Sir to the room,” said the lady to the girl.
“Lot of noise is here in the hall Sir. You will find the room very comfortable,” said the lady.
The girl took me to a room. I found sofa sets with a central table kept in the room. The room was about 12 ftx12ft in size. The girl put a bottle of premium beer and left. By the time I drank half of the bottle, two ladies in their thirties and dressed in a sexually provocative manner entered the room and were seated on the sofa opposite me.
I was checking messages on my mobile. One of the ladies interrupted saying “Hello, Sir.”
“Hello,” I replied.
“Are you new to this place”, one enquired.
“Yes”, I replied.
I found that both of them can speak English fluently. I guessed them to be from well-to-do families and well-educated.
“Will you not offer us drinks?”, said one.
“Oh, yes”, I said thinking that they could, if inebriated; speak out truths about this place.
We started discussing various topics. After half an hour, I introduced myself as a writer and indirectly broached the issue of prostitution. It appeared to me that both of them thought of me as a customer.
“Frankly speaking, we are not whores as you might be guessing. We have family and this is our part-time profession,” said one lady whom I found to be frank and extroverted.
“Sir, the lecherous men are like bees who will not be content with the nectar of one flower as we floozy women take over their needs and see them fly over to the next damsel in line”, she told me.
“We know many of the girls are into this profession primarily due to abject poverty  and…..” before she could complete, another lady interrupted, “please stop the discussion.”
“Sorry, Sir. Please enjoy the drink and our company. If you desire…”, before she could end, another lady said,” No, no, Sir appears to be not like the other guys”.
“Anyway, this is not a new problem. It has been in our society since time immemorial. Nobody could solve this problem. What hurts us is the tall lectures the members of the so-called peer groups and other people associated with different social research organizations deliver about our life. They visit us in AC cars, talk to us, give suggestions on how to improve our lifestyle, reform our conditions and remain connected with mainstream society, etc.,” said a lady.
“We don’t want your sympathy or empathy. Where were the peer groups and those from social research organizations when young girls were suffering from abject poverty, mental agonies, maltreatment on the family front, hunger, and total neglect? Where were they when we were in a fix on what to do or not to do for our survival? No one came forward, listened to our woes, and lent a helping hand to tide over the crisis. We don’t blame anybody. We blame ourselves. We are at the receiving end. We also know that we are the most despised and criticized lot,” she complained.
“When will we get a permanent solution to this nagging problem? Could you please tell me, Sir,” asked one?
“We know you have no answer. Like other members of so-called peer groups, social research organizations, and reformists, you will also leave this place and vanish into oblivion,” said one.
“By the time you reach your home, many young girls would have already joined this profession or trafficked and sold to some brothels or tortured, tormented and abused or allured by some fake friends or fake well-wishers, abused and pushed into flesh trade. So please stop gaining an insight into our lives and leave us to our fate,” saying this both of them left the room.
Having returned to my residence, I wrote this piece to tell you their stories as a sister, a mother, a daughter – as a woman, not just a sex worker.
We cannot and must not conclude that all those who live in dark alleys are all of the easy virtue. I found the majority of them are excellent and dignified human beings with lively hearts and great aspirations to better their financial condition, marry and settle down in life. All they need and expect from us is our moral support, love, respect, social security and acceptability, recognition and respect for their profession, effective and prompt response from the administration whenever they land in trouble, and most importantly safety from the traffickers, dirty-minded bar owners and clutches of lecherous customers and fake well-wishers.