An Educated Woman In Prostitution Read online

  I was now living with Ramkishen’s family in the garden next to the hermitage, which Ramkishen looked after. My daily duties included cleaning the cowshed, feeding the three cows and their calves, filling a dozen pitchers at the well and bringing them to the garden, washing the utensils used to cook for the deities, cleaning up after the sadhus had eaten, and grinding the wheat for my own meals. I used to perform all of these tasks happily, but they felt like very hard work. My hair had been cropped closely at the mahant’s instructions. I had been given permission to enter the temple only during the morning prayers. The mahant would talk to me, as needed, when he walked in the garden.

  A letter arrived from my father a month later. In it, he had informed the mahant that he would be unable to accept me, that he considered a daughter like me dead. I did not have the mental capacity to argue, my mind and body were both weakened. Today, however, I can contradict my father. Shortly before I began writing this memoir I went to Vrindavan, on the occasion of jhulan. There I met the mahant once again, a meeting whose account I shall provide where appropriate. What I had told him then was, ‘I am a grave sinner, babaji, society has no place for me, my father has forsaken me. But you know of the men who have sold their honour and prestige, their wealth and assets, their bodies and their souls, at the feet of women like me, look, society has given them the choicest of positions. They are extolled as poets and writers, renowned as politicians and patriots, respected as the rich and the noble. There are even some sages and priests who have become gurus to the populace, about whom society maintains a studied silence. Nothing comes between them and positions of power in courts and councils and corporations and religious establishments. And we have been burning in the fire of hell because of one mistake made in the ignorance of adolescence. This is how your society metes out justice.’

  Three months passed. One day, Ramkishen told the mahant when he visited the garden, ‘She’s a pregnant woman, baba, what if the child comes to some harm from all the hard work she’s doing?’

  I was nearby, making dung cakes. The mahant said, ‘Do you imagine the child is alive? Somehow it has to be delivered, that is all. She will fall ill unless she works hard.’ Ramkishen was astonished. The mahant said, ‘She has contracted an ugly disease. When aroused by desire we forget the primary rules of health.’

  In due course, I delivered a dead boy child. Ramkishen’s wife devoted herself to taking care of me; I shall always remember the uncomplicated, uneducated farmer woman’s maternal love. I enquired after her when I went back to Vrindavan some time later, but I was told that she had died eight months earlier.

  I developed several illnesses after the delivery. I could not eat anything, and ran up a low fever every evening, accompanied by stomach ailments. The mahant made arrangements for my treatment to the best of his abilities. I recovered to some extent after four months of illness. One night, during this period, I was writhing in pain with a headache, when I felt as though I was in my bed in my Calcutta home, with my mother stroking my brow lightly. In my delirium, I said, ‘Take me to the theatre, ma.’ She said, ‘No, you’re too young.’ Then someone fetched her, and she left me. ‘Take me with you, ma,’ I screamed—Ramkishen’s wife ran in to hear me crying and pleading with my mother.

  I told the mahant of this dream, who responded, ‘You will have to suffer more.’ I asked to be indoctrinated into his order, but he said, ‘I cannot overrule destiny, ma. It is not yet time.’

  Six or seven more months passed; I had now been living in the hermitage for nearly a year. My health was better, and I was able to resume physical work. Some of the mahant’s disciples would appear in the garden at specific hours to collect fruits and vegetables to be cooked for the deities. From a distance the mahant had observed my seductive glances at one of them in the course of conversation. Although I was physically attracted to him, he was pure of disposition. Still, he was no longer sent to the garden.

  Writing a long love letter to him, I entered the hermitage one day at about two in the afternoon with the intention of handing it over. I was aware that the mahant was deep in meditation at this hour. As I stood beneath a tree, waiting, I suddenly discovered the mahant walking towards me. I was petrified. He said, ‘Why are you here at this hour? This is not the right time for you to be at the hermitage.’ Without hesitation I said, ‘One of the calves ran in here.’ The mahant pointed to the gate with his finger, saying gravely, ‘Go outside, there is no calf here. Even if there is, it is Ramkishen’s responsibility, not yours.’

  The mahant sent for me the very next day. I approached him fearfully. Another middle-aged Bengali man was sitting nearby; the mahant said, ‘You must go to Calcutta at once with this gentleman. He will make arrangements for you.’ I was pleased.

  The mahant had been a highly placed officer before his renunciation; many of his friends and former associates would visit him in Vrindavan to discuss matters of religion and spirituality. The gentleman with whom I travelled to Calcutta was a friend of his. I stayed in his house for ten days.

  Somewhere on the outskirts of Calcutta, a gentleman named ________* Das had established an institution for rescued women. A lawyer by profession, he was renowned as a social worker too. The mahant’s friend had taken me there; for he was well-acquainted with Mr Das.

  One episode of my life had ended. My father’s neglect, a poor education and bad company had led me to the path of sin. I had never learnt self-restraint, I had only added fuel to the fire of my tendencies. Reading novels had planted in me the urge to rebel—the thrill of action had diverted me from the outcome.

  Among women like us, those who have gone astray because of illicit love affairs with married men inevitably meet this fate. The man takes his pleasure with the helpless girl, ruining her life, and soon leaves her. There is not a single wayward woman who has lived with her first lover till her death. I shall elucidate the logical reason for this, delving into my own experience.

  Illegitimate love is always born out of passion. But passion is by nature short-lived, and not the result of discernment. Therefore, a love that arises swiftly ends swiftly too. The reason for the separation of a man and a woman engaged in such illicit love is either a character flaw in one or both of them, or adverse circumstances. Poverty, pregnancy, and loss of beauty count as adverse circumstances, while alcoholism and attraction to other women or men are character flaws.

  Both of these materialised in our lives. Ramesh-dada’s drinking and my untimely pregnancy caused our separation. Had Ramesh-dada married me according to Hindu rites, he would never have been able to abandon me. Even if he was not concerned with personal embarrassment or social norms, he would at least have been afraid of the law. An illicit affair provides as much freedom for separation as it does for union. So Ramesh-dada found it easy to leave me. Society will extol his virtues, while I face condemnation. Ramesh-dada did show me the truth eventually.

  But I did not learn my lesson despite all the suffering. Even in the most pious of environments at the mahant’s hermitage, the seeds of carnality were sown once again in my heart. The temptation of the devil reappeared with the promise of the pleasures of paradise. I was bewitched once more.

  * * *

  *The author chose to protect the identity of many of her clients and men of high social standing by not revealing their full names.

  Chapter the Sixth

  Selling My Body

  WOMEN WHO WISHED TO MEND their shameful ways and live in purity were given place in this rescue institution. They would take up some kind of craft to sustain themselves. And then there were women who had been forced by circumstances to be here. Their situations were similar to mine, which made it impossible for them to go back to their families or to society. Their lives were unsettled; it did not appear to me that they were content with securing food and clothing here in this institution. All of them were adolescents or young women. When I went there, there were some thirteen or fourteen women present, of whom everyone, barring four or five middle-aged widows, were of the kind I mentioned.

  I was beginning to understand that for the women who had left home either of their own free will or at the incitement of evil men, a lack of food and clothing was not the primary danger. Rather than ‘where will my next meal come from’, their main worry was ‘how will I survive’. In the city of Calcutta women could be engaged in various businesses and jobs, which could secure enough money for food, clothing, and shelter. But I have observed that even among those women who have found employment or set up their own business enterprises, many have chosen to walk the same path that I did. The reason is that they have never experienced the constraints of married life. Paan-sellers, maids at homes or at boarding houses, fish- or vegetable-sellers in the markets, cooks, factory workers, spice-grinders, stage actresses, devotional singers, nurses, music teachers, midwives, doctors, railway ticket counter clerks, telephone operators—all of them are capable of earning sufficiently to ensure a livelihood for themselves, and, if they wish, of living a pure life. But my experience tells me this is not what happens all the time.

  I had concealed my father’s identity and address to the authorities at the rescue institution. All that they came to know was that I was the daughter of a high-born Brahmin, and that an evil man had lured me out of my home before abandoning me when I became pregnant. I did not reveal Ramesh-dada’s name either; it was known, however, that I had received some education.

  I had been rather desirous of returning to Calcutta from Vrindavan, for I had hopes of meeting, if not anyone else, at least Mukul-dada and Kamala. These two friends were rafts I could cling to in the bottomless ocean. But after entering the rescue institution I discovered that locating them would not be easy.

  Soon I developed an intimacy with several young women of my age, Rajbala and Kalidasi being principal among them. Since they will be referred to again in this book, let me provide an introduction. Rajbala comes from a family of gold traders who lived in Calcutta; she had got married young. Both her father and father-in-law were wealthy, but by a sad stroke of providence, she had become a widow within a year of being married. After this she had entered into a clandestine affair with a young man of the Kayastha caste from East Bengal. The wife of one of Rajbala’s elder brothers had helped her in secret. The young man in question had Bande Mataram on his lips all the time during the heyday of the freedom movement. Their liaison continued for three years, concealed from everyone. Eventually Rajbala became pregnant, and the young man made good his escape. Rajbala left her house with her maid on the pretext on going to bathe in the river, and never went back. After this, she was whirled about on the currents of much misery and suffering before arriving at this rescue institution.

  As for Kalidasi, she was a blacksmith’s daughter, and pretty. Her husband’s family was from a village somewhere in Burdwan. Miscreants abducted her by force from her husband and for a year took her wherever they went. The matter went to the courts, but Kalidasi’s husband did not accept her afterwards. On the advice of a relative, she was about to enter prostitution, but a lawyer from Burdwan happened to find out and despatched her here.

  Gradually I realised that the rescue institution was not safe for us. There was no suffering on account of food or clothing, but some of the authorities paid special attention to those among us who were beautiful and attractive. It was not long before their benediction turned towards me. I did not have to perform any of the chores, and my room began to fill up with myriad furniture. I was exceedingly pleased, as my wardrobe acquired excellent outer garments and expensive inner ones, not to mention fine bed linen. Some of the other women were envious of me because of this. Rajbala and Kalidasi would chuckle whenever they ran into me. ‘Your luck has turned,’ they would say.

  One of the authorities was particularly attracted to me, and I too gave in. He would spend the night in my room sometimes. From him I learnt that some of the other members of the administration also visited my women friends’ rooms in secret. Some time passed this way.

  I proposed marriage to my secret lover one day, but he refused. The women of my age would sometimes gather together to laugh about our secret love affairs. Rajbala, Kalidasi and I would open our hearts to one another; on my advice, both of them had sought marriage too, but to no avail.

  I said, ‘If we are going to sell our beauty and appeal, why should we do it like thieves, we should put ourselves out in the market, gauge the rate we can command and choose an appropriate price.’ Rajbala and Kalidasi did not allow their lovers into their rooms from that very night onwards, and nor did I. We began to be tormented and persecuted after this, whereupon we decided not to stay on in the rescue institution. But we had no support or sanctuary; where were we to go?

  The great war was raging in Europe at the time. A large number of women had travelled from India to the battlefield to provide care to injured soldiers, as a result of which there was a dearth of nurses in the hospitals in big cities like Calcutta and Bombay. We used to get a Bengali newspaper at our rescue institution, and I would often read the news out to the other women.

  Rajbala had a brainwave. One day she told me, ‘Come, let us learn how to be nurses.’ I said, ‘How can we, unless the authorities here make arrangements for us?’ The next time Mr Ghosh came to inspect the institution, Rajbala brought the subject up with him. Pleased with the proposition, he engaged a doctor to give us some preliminary training. Since Kalidasi was not literate, the responsibility for teaching her to read and write was given to me. She made splendid progress in a mere three months. We were taken to the hospital sometimes, where we were taught the names of various instruments and medicines.

  Our former secret lovers were giving us no respite; their oppression was making it unbearable for us. Faced with a horrifying attack, one of the women tried to jump into the building next door to save herself, and fractured her leg. It even led to a court case, but I did not learn of the outcome. One evening Rajbala, Kalidasi, another woman (whose name I forget, perhaps it was Khedi or something similar), and I hired a horse-drawn carriage and went to Tollygunge. From there we took a tram to the meditation temple of the Shadharon Brahmo Samaj on Cornwallis Street.

  This was a place I was familiar with, for I had visited it often with my father in childhood. The memory brought tears to my eyes. The prayers had ended, and most of the worshippers who had gathered had left, with only a few eminent persons still there. We were wearing our saris the way Brahmo ladies do, and had slippers on as well. So we went up to them.

  We had been planning a visit to the Brahmo Samaj for a long time, Rajbala being the primary force. She had told us that the Brahmo Samaj accepted all and sundry, and converting to the Brahmo faith would make it simpler to get married. But what we discovered was that there were barriers here too.

  A tall, powerfully built man of advancing years, with white hair and moustache and beard, was standing in front of us. ‘This I think is Krishna Kumar Mitra,’ Rajbala whispered to us. ‘Touch his feet.’ All four of us did; when he affectionately asked us the reason for our visit, we drew him aside and told him everything, requesting protection and sanctuary. We informed him of the abusive behaviour of the authorities at the rescue institution, and our desire to convert to the Brahmo faith.

  He said, ‘I cannot take the decision to provide you shelter all on my own, it is necessary to consult the others in the Samaj.’ He beckoned to an elderly man, who, when told of everything, protested vehemently with particular loathing, ‘No, how will that be possible? They have tainted pasts. Shall we allow sin to enter the Brahmo Samaj?’ We left, disappointed, but not before touching Krishna Kumar Mitra’s feet again, which he allowed. But the other gentleman, whose name, we learnt afterwards, was Heramba-babu, jumped back, saying, ‘No, never.’ I had occasion to meet this gentleman subsequently, but I shall refrain from recounting the incident for it may cause him pain.

  We began to wonder where to go now. The rescue institution was not going to accept us, not that we were inclined to go back. Suddenly I remembered Kamala. I knew her address, and felt confident of being able to stay there for one or two days. All four of us set off in a horse-drawn carriage to her house in Baghbazar.

  But when we got there we discovered that Kamala had gone away somewhere with her mother, they no longer lived there. There was a new tenant, who could not tell me about Kamala and her mother’s whereabouts. It was as though I had been felled by a bolt of lightning. After all these years of suffering, I had been feeling joyful at the prospect of meeting my childhood friend Kamala again after a long time—I had never imagined my hopes would be dashed this way. Plunging my head in my hands, I began to ponder.

  I had forgotten Mukul-dada’s address; I may have been able to secure it from Kamala, but would it be possible anymore? Rajbala said, ‘I know a place where all of us can stay tonight. We can think about what to do in the morning.’ We had no choice but to agree, for it was quite late at night.

  Paying the driver of the carriage additional fare, we took shelter for the night at the house of a prostituted woman in Harkata Lane in Champatala. In her past life Rajbala used to know this woman. She had taken the entire building on rent and established a woman in prostitution in each room, and took some money from each of them. Her income came from this sinful path. Amongst prostituted women, those like her are referred to as the ‘baariwali’ or landlady (or, sometimes, ‘maashi’). Everyone addressed this particular woman as Rani Baariwali.

  The landlady was delighted to meet Rajbala after such a long time, and the three of us as well. With great care and attention she ushered us into a room which lacked for nothing by way of sleeping arrangements. Some food was served, and the landlady began a conversation with Rajbala on various subjects. I was too anxious to be calm; I was entering the room of a purely professional woman in prostitution for the first time, which made me experience a curious discomfort. The room was in a corner of the ground floor of the building, with no sunlight or fresh air. There was an unfamiliar stench everywhere, the vomit of drunkards, music and singing, shouts and screams, swearing and screaming—my heart sank looking at all of this. But even if I were to run away, I did not know where to go.