Three nights in Kamathipura

Writing a news report last year, I took two sex workers and their children to a theatre in Bengaluru to watch Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hindi film ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’. It is loosely based on the life of Gangubai Harjeevandas (1939-2008), pushed into prostitution as a teen. She rose to become the most powerful ‘madam’ in Mumbai’s Kamathipura, and an activist for the rights of sex workers and orphans.

The sex workers weren’t impressed by the film, starring Alia Bhatt in the titular role. “I wish sex workers looked and dressed like Alia and the brothels were so clean,” one said dismissively after the show.

Last month, I was in Mumbai for my graduation ceremony. I was planning to visit Geoffrey’s, my favourite pub on Marine Drive, when it struck me that Kamathipura was not too far. I thought I should see what it looked like in real life. Kamathipura is the second-largest red-light district in India after Kolkata’s Sonagachi.

Past Ambani’s house

I took a local train to Grant Road. The world’s most expensive house on earth, Mukesh Ambani’s Antilia, came into view, as did other mansions. After walking for 15 minutes, I reached the central lane of Kamathipura. It is lined with shops selling shoes, denim, and football jerseys, mostly counterfeits of famous brands. It also has food stalls and old cafés, as also homeless people and litter.

Also Read | UK yogis and nannies look to sex workers in fight for rights

The women lining the street wore colourful saris, chunky jewellery, heavy makeup, and jasmine in their hair. I didn’t want to assume they were sex workers. But I soon saw men bargaining with them, and a woman thrashing an inebriated man. Everything about this place felt like it had been plucked out of a film set, but with the added gloom of real life.

I could spy dingy rooms lit by neon lights, and dive bars that stocked country booze. In some of these nameless bars, women sat with men. It reminded me of short stories by writer Saadat Hasan Manto. He hung out with sex workers in a seedy Kamathipura bar, hearing them out, seeking inspiration, and writing some of the finest letters and scripts of his career. While Manto wasn’t a resident, poet and Dalit activist Namdeo Dhasal had lived in one of the lanes of Kamathipura.

I strolled down the street, hoping to find sex workers to speak to. At a cross, a man in tattered clothing approached me. “Sir, any special service?” he said, with paan in mouth. “I want to speak to sex workers,” I said. In a Bihari accent, he said, “They do everything here except talk.”

Okay. So on to Plan B. “Dalaal se milna hai (I want to meet a broker),” I said. “Hum wahi hain (I’m one),” he said, amused.

I saw a police van and gestured to the men in khaki to stop. “I am a journalist. Is it safe to speak to the pimps and sex workers here?” I asked a havaldar. “You’ll get kicked out of the brothel and lose your shoes if you go in. They snatch phones and steal money here,” he said. Vans patrolled the street every five minutes.

I went back to the pimp. Four men hanging out at a cigarette shop approached me. They were also pimps and reeked of liquor. I told them I was there to talk to sex workers. “I hope you’re not recording anything?” one said, sternly. They escorted me to a corner, searched my belongings, ensured my DSLR camera was turned off, and looked for hidden cameras. They were satisfied I was safe to talk to. And then came a warning: “This place is full of drug addicts. Get out of here!”

A pimp led me to a quieter spot and pleaded with me not to call the police. “I was born here. I have four children,” he said. He said he also works as a ragpicker, and pointed to four sacks filled with empty liquor bottles. “I make about Rs 9,000 a month,” he said. I was not there for an investigation but the pimps were too drunk to reason with.

I headed to Lane 14, one of the most ‘infamous brothel lanes’. A girl of about 15 was hurling profanities at a man chasing her. Sex workers giggled at them, the only time I saw any emotion on their faces. Most times, they stood like lifeless statues. Unlike African sex workers who make suggestive remarks at passers-by in Bengaluru, women here don’t engage in chit-chat unless the men initiate it.

I had spoken to sex workers through NGOs earlier, but never by myself, and never around brothels. My outing this time wasn’t going too well. I tried to talk to at least 20 women, and they turned me away with the choicest abuses. I decided to head home. I called a cab and reached into my back pocket. My wallet was gone. The havaldar was right.

I returned to Kamathipura the next night. About 15 women cursed me. No one believed I was a journalist. So I decided to explore the narrow alleys silently. Over three hours, I saw sex workers huddled inside their dark kothas, which also double up as their homes. Their shimmery clothes were in sharp contrast to the squalor of their homes. Some stood outside — brothel owners pay them Rs 200 a day for doing just that, I would learn later.

Located in the heart of Mumbai, Kamathipura is home not only to sex workers but also to people from other walks of life. “We were raised here. They’re just going about their day as we are,” a college student said. The spirit of Mumbai, where you do your thing, I thought to myself.

No point talking

On the third night, my friend Mrinalini, a publicist, tagged along. Laughing between conversations, our cab driver told three people over the phone that he was heading to Kamathipura. “Let me take you to Congress House if you want to talk… many sex workers there. They are high-end, unlike the ones in Kamathipura,” he said, trying to be helpful. Grant Road has three establishments similar to the ones in Kamathipura, he told us.

Mrinalini and I got off at a half-dilapidated building in an alley illuminated by sodium vapour lamps — the Congress House. The men on the street assumed I was a pimp and my friend a sex worker. Their grins disappeared when we started asking questions. “The place is closed for Navratri, and there is no one you can talk to,” one said. They were trying to fob us off. The Congress House was swarming with customers. Dance bars were banned in 2005 but they flourish around here.

We decided to return to Kamathipura. Prostitution is considered the oldest profession, yet it remains unorganised and taboo. We discussed the paradox as we walked on.

We spotted a policewoman in a patrol van and sprinted down the road. We asked her to arrange an interaction with a sex worker. ‘Vaishali Pawar’, her badge read. She looked at the ID card around my neck, got off the vehicle, and called out a girl’s name. This was her jurisdiction. She knows everybody around here. “Sab apne log hai. (They are all our people),” she said. We were moved when she spoke of sex workers as ‘our people’.

Fearing Vaishali would reprimand her for something, the girl fled. “We look after them but we also stay strict to ensure nothing untoward happens,” the cop said, and took us to Lane 11. “Tell them whatever they want to know,” she told a brothel owner and left.

Mrinalini and I sat on a charpai. Pimps and customers formed a circle around us as the brothel owner, Payal (name changed), started to chat with us. Yet again, we had to switch off our phones and cameras.

Payal was 20 when she was kidnapped from Bengaluru by a couple who promised to get her a job in Mumbai. She was sold to a brothel in Kamathipura. This was in 2008. Today, she employs five sex workers. She receives a cut of Rs 20 to Rs 50 from them. Each sex worker makes Rs 200 to Rs 220 from a customer.

Her three-year-old son was playing in the lane. “Yes, I have a husband,” she said, visibly uneasy with the direction the chat was taking. Except for her husband, nobody in the family knows she runs a brothel.

What has changed

The office of the International Human Rights Council is a stone’s throw away. Nagpada police station is nearby. Many NGOs work in the area. “Why do you assume I wouldn’t have made an effort to escape? It’s more complicated than you think. I don’t feel like talking about it,” Payal .

She was more forthcoming about how sex work has changed over the years. Quitting the profession wasn’t easy 10 years ago — pimps and gangsters would hunt the women down and drag them back. Now, women are free to quit and receive police assistance, and the network of pimps who used to traffic in minors has been almost wiped out, she claimed.

But social worker Shobhna Ajit Kasulla says that women and girls are still trafficked in brothels here. “A lot of them hail from poor families in Bangladesh. They are sold to pimps with the promise of a job and better life in Mumbai. But some take up sex work voluntarily in order to escape poverty,” she adds.

She notes that four out of 10 sex workers enrol in rehabilitation programmes at NGOs. But many come back to brothels. Emotional and mental scars left by prostitution, and lack of vocational skills prevents them from facing a different life, she says.

Previously, 16-year-olds would come looking for sex in Kamathipura. Today, under-22 men aren’t allowed inside kothas. “Women dying of AIDS and STDs was common. Today, protection is a must. Girls beat up men who want to avoid using condoms,” Payal said. We saw one woman go inside with five men, one after another, in a span of 40 minutes.

“If a man talks of rosy things, and begs us to marry him, we kick him out. If he refuses to pay or seeks credit, we beat him up,” Payal adds. The Kamathipura clientele is mostly working class and middle class, while the sex work circuit in Juhu gets the Land Rover and BMW crowd, I was told.

Transgender sex workers in Kamathipura appeared to be better off than those in business hubs like Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road, Lokhandwala, and Bandra. We met Shabnam (name changed), who wore an orange top, ripped black jeans and stilettos. Her hair was blow-dried and she wore a nice perfume. Unlike others in Kamathipura who spoke Marathi, Bengali, and broken Hindi, she spoke fluent English.

Payal doesn’t usually talk to people outside her line of work. “I am talking to you only because the police memsaab made the request. She’s a good friend. She is helpful,” she said.

She switched the topic. “Since the time BJP came to power, everything from gas to ration has become expensive. But sex still costs the same. For Rs 200, we deal with men who behave like animals. Is it fair?” she asked. Top ministers, cop, and civic officials stay close by. “They do nothing. When the monsoons come, the sewage flows into our brothels. Work goes on. Men still flock for sex,” she said as our chat drew to a close at 12.30 am.

Gangubai temple

“Have you seen the temple of Gangubai? It’s around the corner,” a college student said, as we reached Lane 14 on our way out. We entered a brothel believed to be hundreds of years old, and the first in Kamathipura. It was undergoing repair. We climbed the creaky steps and met a woman from West Bengal inside. “This is Gangubai’s mandir,” Shabana (name changed) said, gesturing to the statue of Gangubai Harjeevandas next to her room.

Her room had a musty odour, the ceiling was mossy, and blue paint was peeling off the walls. “Before leaving for work, we light a lamp here and pray,” she continued. We wanted to take pictures of the ‘mandir’ but a wooden log was blocking the idol. Shabana promised to send us a picture instead. Her husband and family live in Bengal. They don’t know she is a sex worker. They know only about her second job as a domestic worker.

Shabana was easy to talk to, so Mrinalini decided to ask questions I would hesitate to ask. Do sex workers use lubricants, since each of them engages with 10-15 customers a day? She did not know about lubricants nor did she want to know about them. “We don’t have sex… the men have sex with us. It’s not possible to have sex with 15 men a day. If we did that, we would be gone. By choice, we have sex maybe once or twice a year,” she said.