Bargaining for Love

The story of a sex worker in her mid-20s from Sonagachi, Kolkata

- Agnideb Bandyopadhyay

RENUKA (name changed), a sex worker in her mid-20s, held her dupatta firmly over her mouth, her eyes quivering, as a drop of sweat ran down her forehead.

Her room was the size of a bed, with clothes hung on damp pink walls battling cobwebs. She looked a bit intimidated as the silence of the room contrasted with the sounds of the Sonagachi streets outside. Just around the corner of the kotha was one of the perennially-loud corners of Kolkata’s red-light district, with the hush-hush of the pimps and sex workers seated on stools outside the brothels engaging in cacophonous banter.

Renuka had never been asked about love. On being asked about the first time that she fell in love, she starts laughing. The expression on her face seemed like an amusing cocktail—of coyness and surprise. She adjusts herself among the pile of clothes and mumbles after a couple of minutes, “Yes, I have fallen for love.”

Renuka’s surprise on being asked about love mirrored the reaction of Bijli Begum, a notoriously foul-mouthed sex worker, passing by. The sixty-something woman, clad in black with a fashionable orange handbag, has not taken clients for a long time now. She keeps coming to Sonagachi to help young girls with numerous issues. Surprised at how obnoxious the question sounded, Begum responded with a trail of expletives and a derisive smile on her face.

They have always been recognised as a “different species”, Begum points out. The questions that the media has asked them over the years have always been doused in pity. “Are you insane or what?” she yells, as if mocking the sheer pointlessness of it. “Love? Us whores and love? I piss on the face of love and men,” she says, as she gets back to her phone.