The Very First

                          THE VERY FIRST

So, this is the first time I am putting my words up in the public eye (My professor forbids starting a sentence with ‘so’, and here I am, her diligent student). I hope you are not too harsh with your judgement, although it is inevitable.

I always wanted to write, but never knew what to. Plus, the prospect of being categorized with Ravinder Ss and Sudeep Ns terrified me (I beg of you, don’t). So here it is, whatever this is or will become.

I work with an NGO which works for the women and the children in the red-light area of Delhi, G.B Road. This blog was an impulsive decision after I suddenly thought of writing down my experiences in the street. I am not very confident though; I doubt I have enough words in stock to convey them with the same depth.

My first time in a brothel - I had gone there to get the kids to school. Extremely nervous, I climb up and enter the room beside the ascending stairs. The structure of the building has the look of a beehive, without any definitely marked floors. A lady acknowledges me, and ‘tells’ me sit on a bench in this room. It is small, barely furnished; three sex-workers sit there, watching Hindi TV soaps, waiting for customers.

I look around. The room is colored in a bad greenish shade, with some painted benches. This is the living room. There is a dingy kitchen right behind one such set of benches, with a non-functional bulb suspended from a wire. The light from the living room is the only source of light for the kitchen, but I guess it works just fine. Both these rooms are essentially one, for there is no partition for the kitchen except the benches.  A few ladies smile and greet me as I wait; they know where I’ve come from. A few others don’t seem to even acknowledge my presence. They are in the farthest corner of the room, at the window overlooking the street, inviting men inside. A man climbs up the stairs and a woman take him into a small, dark room, a few steps towards my right. As they shut the door, a faint, yellowish light escapes the narrow slits and cracks in the makeshift wall.

Half an hour or so, they come out, the man tying the lace of his pajamas, or adjusting his belt or pants. His expression is undiscernible. I can not decipher if he is satisfied with her 'services'. I can not even look at him eye-to-eye, it disgusts me. The woman maintains her nonchalant visage as she goes to the dingy bathroom in the corner of the ‘living room’, sometimes closing the door, sometimes simply washing her hands. I wonder if she enjoyed the sex. What did the man do to her? How is life inside the dark room? Has she ever orgasmed from a customer? How did she even end up here? Plenty of questions. I want to ask. I refrain. Does the darkness of the room project into her life as well?

She hands one of the elder ladies a 200 rupee note, and sits down beside me, unlocks her phone and starts browsing Youtube. Another lady looks down the stairs and calls out a man, saying something in the lines of “There’s good stuff here”. The sudden shrill voice startles me, so I can’t really comprehend what exactly she says. He does not come up, and she goes back to her TV soap, adjusting an earbud of the white earphones dangling from her ears.  

The kids are ready by now, eager to go to school. Maybe they find an escape from this life there? Or are they so used to it that they don’t really need an escape? I don’t know; I can’t fathom. I walk down the stairs with them. Again, plenty of questions. I guess I won’t be asking those anytime soon. I desperately want to befriend one of these women. But I guess I seek it for my personal gratification, not for her sake. I want to listen to her for me, not for her. A strange sense of guilt overcomes me as I walk back to school, four kids holding my hands.