Two different kinds of sales go on at a feverish pace at the subway at Majestic and its surroundings during late evenings and nights—hawkers loudly advertising their wares and women and eunuchs silently selling their bodies.

This reporter spent over four hours at the spots on Saturday evening to learn about the seamy side of life in the City.

Here are a few scenes that speak for themselves: Women and eunuchs making a beeline to the ladies’ toilet at the end of the taxi parking lot and adding final touches to their make-up; the group rushing to the subway’s entrance outside the City Railway Station and positioning themselves along the stretch of the footpath a few feet away from each other; another woman standing at a corner near the subway and turning down many men who approached her as their rates did not match her expectations; a cop chasing a commerical sex worker away and she merely moves a few feet away and carries on her soliciting. 

With the subway connecting three vital spots, the railway station, the BMTC bus stand and the KSRTC bus stand, it is quite crowded making this venue a natural choice for those who want to solicit.

Public discomfiture

A railway official, quite bitter about the activities, said, “I used to step outside the station earlier for tea break but now I dread to do so because of the nasty environment. I felt humiliated when one of the sex-workers winked at me. They line the stairs of the subway and one feels very embarrassed to cross the side. My wife came here to see off her relatives and expressed shock that these activities were going on so openly. Imagine the sordid image being conveyed to outsiders.”

A top railway official took this reporter to a spot where soliciting business is brisk—the pathway outside the station which leads to the subway. In front is an auto stand. “The sex workers operate in tandem with some auto drivers. They haggle with customers and the minute they agree upon a rate, an auto is waiting to take them to the spot they desire,” he said.

Helpless drivers

But not all autorickshaw drivers are accomplices. One of the drivers, on condition of anonymity, said, “I certainly agree that five of the drivers around make a regular income by conniving in this activity.  In fact, many of us staged a couple of agitations that prostitutes should not be allowed near our workspot as it gives the auto stand a bad reputation. But nothing came of it.” He alleged that they felt helpless since the sex workers bribed policemen and carried on business unhindered. 

His colleague remarked,  ‘’We choose to park our autos at the end away from these kind of activities. It is disgusting, we have been seeing this for years now.”

A policeman was seen shooing away a group. When asked about the flourishing business at the spot, he said, “I keep chasing them, but they keep coming back.” When questioned why no serious action could be taken against them, his colleague answered, “To take them into custody, we need a lady constable with us. They also keep threatening us that they will approach organisations for women and take us to task if we take action. Once they even ganged up and beat up one of the cops at the BMTC bus stand some time ago.”

In a tech-savvy city, not all carry on the world’s oldest profession in the old-fashioned way. Two sex workers were noticed calling up a previous customer’s number stored on one of their mobiles and telling him they were available at a particular spot.

An interaction some time ago with a gathering of eunuchs (who were sex workers) about their choice of profession generated this unanimous  response from their side: “Who is ready to give us a decent job? Give us a job which will pay as much as we earn here and we will quit this way of life.”