by Amita Trasi
“Hi,” I said.
“Tara,” Raza’s excited voice surged through the phone, “I was able to speak to Andrew again. He said he could locate this woman, Sweety. When she told her story to Andrew, she said she was born in Ganipur and, she was a temple prostitute’s daughter. It can’t be a coincidence Tara. It has to be her. It has to be Mukta.”
I felt numb. What was the name of that prostitute I had met a couple years ago? The woman with green eyes who had looked at me while she had whispered in a customer’s ears. I didn’t remember her name now. For some reason, her expression had stayed in my memories, and I always regretted not being able to talk to her. Sylvie was the prostitute standing by the side of the street who had pointed her out to me.
“Tara, are you listening? My contact at the NGO is planning a raid on that brothel tomorrow night. We don’t want to wait. If we are lucky they haven’t moved her. She could still be there. Are you listening?” His voice rang with excitement.
“Yes,” I managed to say. “I will meet him there.”
All of it was surreal, improbable even. It had been almost five years of helplessly looking for someone I’d lost. Had I finally found her?
Howrah railway station was one of the busiest stations I had seen. As soon as I stepped foot outside, I could feel the intense heat, the stench of sweat mixed with the smell of fish. Romesh waved at me from a distance. He was Raza’s friend I had worked with during one of the brothel raids in Mumbai. Back then, he had been looking for a prostitute—a young girl of twelve who had been trafficked from Kolkata. I suppose that’s how NGOs worked, contacting each other for help in case the ones they needed to rescue had been moved to another city. This time it was Romesh’s turn to return the favor.
“Welcome to Kolkata. Is this your first time?”
I nodded.
“Let me help you with your luggage. Raza told me how keen you are to find this girl. We met Andrew today, and he told us where Mukta is. We can help get her out. But we will have to act quickly.”
He hurled my luggage in the van and asked me to sit in the backseat.
“Raza said he’d meet us there. He is flying to Kolkata.”
The Kolkata streets were teeming with people—just like Bombay. I could smell the rotting garbage and hear the incessant honking of vehicles. It didn’t take long to reach Sonagachi. It was no different than Kamathipura. I could see the women standing outside, trying to get the attention of men.
Raza joined us as we waited outside the brothel Andrew had pointed us to.
“I am going in,” I told Romesh.
“Tara, I want you to understand that women like Mukta have known no other life for a very long time. It might take her some time, shock her that she is out. She may or may not recognize you. I want you to be aware of that.”
“Don’t try to stop me, Romesh. I am going in.”
“Okay. We will wait for the police to give us the go ahead. You can join the rest of my team,” he sighed and walked toward his car, shaking his head.
Raza and I looked on from the car. The police had already entered the place and started getting the men into the jeep.
“Andrew was sure that Mukta would be here?” I asked Raza, looking at the ruin of a building.
Raza looked at me and nodded. “That’s what Andrew said. He said she wasn’t willing to leave because she has a daughter who was caught in the trade. You just have to tell her that Asha is with you. I am sure she’ll want to get out then. Once you have her . . . would . . . you want to go back to America? I know you can have a better life there.”
I looked at him, but he refused to meet my eyes.
“Raza,” I said softly, “I don’t want to go to America.” My words were slow and deliberate. “I am staying right here with you.” I took his hand in mine. He didn’t look at me but tightened his grip on my hand.
Romesh knocked on the car door.
“Let’s go,” he said, and we walked toward the brothel together.
“You will be able to do a DNA test now and find out if she is your sister,” Raza said as we walked through the dark corridors inside.
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“But you’ll never know if—”
“I don’t want to know . . . not anymore,” I said. “You know, when I read Papa’s letter, the last time he ever wrote anything to me, I knew that didn’t matter. Both Anupam chacha and he were caught in their debate about whose daughter she really was. And nobody saw her for the child she was. I don’t want to make the same mistake again. Some bonds run deeper than blood.”
“Then what will you tell her when you meet her?”
“That she is my sister. That she has always been my sister,” I said, the steps creaking as I climbed them.
And I knew that the moment had come, the eye of a storm my whole life had whirled around. This was the moment I had waited for so eagerly—the moment when I could walk across to Mukta and take her home.
It’s a futile dream—I stand by the window and watch while a dove flies to me. The dove kisses my hands and leads me to light.
–MUKTA
Thirty
April 2009
There was chaos in the air—the sudden scuffle of feet, those muffled voices outside. The man I was with seemed to know exactly what was happening without any explanation from me. He jumped to his feet, pulled his pants up, and buttoned them at his waist. In the dim flickering light, I saw the shame in his eyes, the shame of being in a place such as this. He gathered his clothes in a bundle in one hand, clutched them close to his naked chest, and ran out the door, his shoes dangling from his other hand.
“What are you doing sitting there? Let’s hide,” one of the girls said, peeking into my room.
I shook my head and smiled at her solemnly.
She knew what I was thinking and didn’t insist. I watched her turn around and disappear down the stairs. I got up and tightened my blouse around my chest, pulled down my skirt, tied its drawstrings, and sat down, waiting for the police to show up. The raids had become a common thing. Every time the police broke into our brothel, their voices called out to us as if they had suddenly discovered that we exist. They find nothing. We are well-trained to squirm into crevices, mold ourselves like clay into secret spaces. On occasions when we are caught, the police haul us into vans, take us to the station, keep us locked up for one night, and then we are back to work the next day after they are paid well by the brothel owner to keep their noses out of this business.
Every prostitute caught was freed only if the brothel owners paid her bail, a small amount compared to the money we made for them. But the money they spent on us was added to our debt. So there was wisdom in being safe, in hiding in those tiny places. I had done so several times, astutely avoiding the ones who raided this brothel.
This time I wanted to wait it out and ask the police if they knew anything about my daughter. A strange strength emerged in me. I was tired, and I simply didn’t seem to care if I was beat up, kept without food and water, or even killed. I had been quiet long enough, and I wanted to know where my Asha was. I owed her that much for bringing her into this nasty world.
I stood up and watched the street outside, watched how the routine commotion had come to a halt, how the bustling street had settled into silence. Some of the shopkeepers had closed their shutters; others had left them half open and run away before they could be caught by the police. The men loitering about had vacated the place and run away, as if their reputations could be harmed further. The women who usually stood on the street beckoning such men had already been jostled into the police van. I saw them sitting in the van, their eyes scanning the building through the barred windows, seeking help.
“Are you all right?”
I turned around. It was a woman’s voice, warm and calm, but I could see no one. I had expected a policeman to snatch me away from the window, drag me by my neck down the stairs, and throw me into the police van.
“Are you all right?”
she asked again.
The lonely light that flickered in my room had been turned off and the darkness hid her. She switched on her torchlight but focused it on the ground. I watched her silhouette move in my direction. There was a man beside her. I hadn’t seen him there.
“My name is Romesh. We are here to help you,” he told me. I could barely see their faces.
“Yes . . . okay,” I said softly.
“We will get you out of here,” she said, and I walked with them towards an unknown destination. It occured to me then that in my entire life, I had never questioned where people led me. Even now, I didn’t ask. I walked down the stairs, following them. The torchlight that shone on the ground reminded me of the fireflies of my childhood, the ones that showed me the way out of the forest. In the glow of that light I saw the staircase, how it had rusted over the years, the peeling paint like skin falling off an old wound. The corridors were as dark as ever as we walked through them. Her hand led me to the door, and I had this sudden churning in my stomach, a feeling that I was leaving it all behind, the only life I have known for so many years.
As the door opened, a dozen torch lights were on us, the light dispersing the darkness around us.
“Switch them off,” I heard someone yell in the distance.
As the lights switched off one by one, I noticed the full moon in the clear sky, the clouds gliding away, parting for the moon to shine down on me, and I lowered my gaze. It was so overwhelming, the vastness of the open space around me, the sudden feel of fresh breeze on my face, that I couldn’t breathe. I turned around and tried to flee, but the woman held onto my arm.
“You don’t understand, I have to go back,” I told her. “I . . . cannot—”
“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you,” she whispered. Her hands were on my shoulders; my tears fell on her hands, settling like dew drops on leaves.
She had a gentle smile. She reminded me of someone. “Let’s go,” she said.
I noticed the unibrow on her forehead, the round face, those keen eyes as she spoke to someone. How she looked like . . . like Memsahib . . . like Tara. How could she be in this place? I dismissed the thought, told myself I was in a daze and wasn’t thinking clearly. When she turned to look at me, I realized I had been staring at her and looked away. When I looked back, her eyes were brimming with tears.
“Mukta?” she whispered.
Nobody had called me by that name in a long time. I watched her face, waited for her to say something else. She didn’t tell me her name. She didn’t have to. I just knew. I knew, but words didn’t come. A whimper escaped me. She smiled through her tears as she drew me into her arms. It seemed like the old days again, when her touch, her breath of kindness washed away my pain.
“I have been looking for you for such a long time.” Her embrace was warm and tight.
We didn’t speak for some time, nestled in each other’s arms. The street was silent; the eyes that surrounded us stared at us. I retracted from the safety of that embrace.
“I have to go back in there. I cannot come with you,” I sniffled, my voice trembling as I spoke. “My daughter is in there. I have to find her.”
“I know,” she whispered, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ears. “Asha is with me.”
There were so many questions I wanted to ask, so many answers I seemed to need, and yet I gaped at her. “Yes, I was going to tell you. We found her. She is with me,” she repeated.
“And she is okay? I mean—”
“Yes, yes.”
“Is she eating well? Before they took her away, she had stopped eating—”
“Yes, yes, don’t worry. We will take you to her.” She smiled.
The flight to Mumbai seemed very long. Tara was jabbering on about how Raza—the goonda who had once tried to hurt her in the streets—had helped so much with her search. She told me he had to stay back in Kolkata on account of work. I asked her if Asha asks about me.
“Always. Every opportunity she gets,” Tara said.
I had waited so long to see my daughter that I was not even thrilled to see the clouds float beside us. It did not occur to me that I had always wanted to be on an airplane. Ever since Arun Sahib had talked about his travel, I had wanted to be so many feet up in the air. But all this—it didn’t fascinate me now. The ride from the airport to the apartment wasn’t very long, but my mind was ravaged with anguish. I longed to see my Asha. I worried about what had become of her.
The apartment was the way it was, so many years ago. The poetry of my childhood that ran free through the corridors; the songs that we had once sung made me feel like I was that ten-year-old girl again. But such a long time it had been. The echoes of our childish giggles had settled like dust over this home. The kitchen still had the smells of my past, the tree outside still stood strong, telling me how long it has waited for me. I looked at Tara, who stood by the door behind me, watching me with amusement.
“How long?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“How long have you been looking for me?”
“About five years.”
“So you aren’t married then?” I asked.
She shook her head and smiled at me. “Came very close . . . ”
Tiredness had sunk into her face like water seeps into soil, making it darker with its dampness. She seemed to have learned to conceal the distress in her eyes, but I could still see it; I had seen darker versions of it around me for such a long time. This was not what I had wanted for her, to waste her life looking for me, trying to understand the brothel world. After all, the life I’ve lived had always been my destiny.
“I thought you’d be married, have children, live a happier life than me,” I said, looking away, twirling the ends of my sari.
“I am happy now.” She smiled at me, held my hand, then walked to a cupboard and took out a stack of ironed clothes.
“Besides,” she said, handing the clothes to me, “I think we will have plenty of time to talk about this. Don’t you want to freshen up? Navin has taken Asha and Rohan to the park. They will be back soon. Asha likes Navin’s son, Rohan a lot—reminds me of Navin and my friendship. You’ll see,” she laughs.
It didn’t take long to hear my little one’s giggles. I stepped out the main door and there saw her—wearing new clothes, holding a little boy’s hands, jabbering away in delight. She looked at me, stopped and stared at me, let go of the boy’s hand, then ran the long corridor. “Amma,” she screamed and I heard her shrill cries as she called out to me. I bent forward and stretched my arms out for her. She smelled like the breeze—fresh and full of life, her moist breath on my neck a mere memory for the last many months.
“They are not going to take me away now, are they?” her lips trembled.
“No, no . . . ” I laughed through my tears and tightened my embrace around her.
After Asha fell asleep, Tara and I talked like children once again, as if we had never parted. We sat on the floor, warm chai in our hands, the noise from the streets pouring through the window.
“Do you remember that poem I wrote?” I asked.
“The one I laughed at? Yes,” she said and sang it to me as the crickets chirp around us.
No matter how bad the weather,
How difficult the road,
We will always be together,
Climbing the hill,
Wading through the rough waters,
Always together.
“It sounds awkward when you sing it,” I snickered.
“Hey, you wrote it!”
I laughed and she joined in.
“I thought of it so many times when they locked me in that dark room. I always knew it was you—you who would be there for me.”
She leaned forward and caressed my wrist. “I searched for so long. How I longed all that while just to touch your hand again and now . . . it seems like a dream . . . as if you are . . . you are . . . ”
“A ghost?” I asked.
We erupted into laughter again, the cha
os of our lives momentarily forgotten.
“You speak differently, a little like those foreign men who used to come visit me.”
“Yes, I lived abroad. Papa took me after Aai died and after you were . . . ”
“I heard. Andrew told me. Did you like it there?”
She thought for a while. “Yes and no.”
She told me how heartbroken her Papa had been when they first moved there, of how even friendly people seemed strange to her.
“That’s when I took to reading books and found that you were right.”
“I was right?”
“Yes, books are better than the world we live in.”
I smiled at the memory. It had been a long time since I’d held a book in my hands and shared it with her.
“Maybe I should get a book from the library, something you’d like to read,” she offered.
“Maybe later. What about a husband? You didn’t meet anyone?”
She laughed. “You sound like my friend Elisa who is always eager to marry me off.”
“Hmm, it was a dream I couldn’t have for myself. So I wanted it for you. I wanted it badly for you.”
Her eyes filled up as she gave me a wave of her hand, brushing away a thought. She continued to tell me about her life growing up in another country, about Elisa who had become a dear friend, of how she met Brian, of how Sahib committed suicide. Her eyes moistened as she spoke of her Papa, and I remembered how dear he had been to her.
