Struggle For An Identity

The night has come, and my neighborhood is now gearing up for another glittery evening where people come to fulfill their desires. My eyes opened after a long sleep, and I don't remember how long was that. My head hurts and I am still struggling to regain my conscious. Alcohol is where I find my solace. I don't know the day, or the date. I am locked inside a dark room of a popular brothel. I don't know which city am I in. I don't know where exactly I am. All I know is, my body hurts in an excruciating pain and I hallucinate before I knock myself for a long sleep.

I wish I could change my situation. I want to run away and go back home, back to my parents. I miss resting my head on my mother's lap and listening to her stories. Oh lord, those days were carefree. My parents.... They were extremely poor. I was born to a farmer in Jogbudha, a remote village of Western Nepal. Maa told me that I was a blessing in disguise that Maa and Baba received. They called me Laxmi. I was an apple of their eyes. I miss that warmth and comfort that I received from them. I had many friends back home and I used to sing and play all day long. I don't have friends here. Just have perverted eyes who buy me for a night. I never went to school because Baba didn't have enough money. I didn't mind at all because I could run around in the field as much as I wanted to, and honestly, I loved it. I loved being a free bird.
I was growing up. And from a child, I was becoming a girl. One day, Maa told me, "Chhori, (daughter) you are nine years old today. Please be to be alert and careful. You  are an innocent girl. Don't talk to strangers. If anyone says something or does something to you, be brave and tell your Maa about it." Maa's lecture was always boring and I never made an effort to understand the values behind it. I wish God hadn't made me innocent and gullible. The elder boys from the hood stared at me and enjoyed it. I could never understand that dirty stare. I wish I could, but I was 'innocent and gullible'. Shyam Uncle, Baba's best friend always had a bad sight on me. Alas, I was too innocent and gullible to understand that. One day, Shaym Uncle took me out to buy me sweets and I went with him happily. I wish I wasn't a gullible girl.

  We went to the Wednesday market. Like always, it was over crowded. People from four different villages came here. Shyam Uncle met two very strange looking men. He was conversing in a different language. I was too small to understand it. Maybe that's Hindi. People from India and Nepal traveled to and fro as the border was few miles away from my village. Before I could understand what was going on, Shyam Uncle handed me over to those men and took some money in return. Later, I found out that they were called dalals. 

Those dalals took me from there and they kept me inside a container. It was dark there. To my surprise, I saw a lot of other girls of my age. We had no clue why were we picked up, neither did we know the destination we were heading to. Now, I know that I was another victim of HUMAN TRAFFICKING!!! Now I know that I was drowning in the quicksand of the dirtiest business of the world: trafficking and prostitution. I wish I hadn't been gullible. I wish I had taken Maa's lectures and scolding seriously. I wish I had not fought with Maa to go to the market with Shyam Uncle.

Inside that dark container, I was scared. I cried my lungs out, hoping that Maa would hear me and come to rescue me. After much of crying, I realized that it was of no use. I wad doomed. Doomed because I was naive. Other girls were equally scared. After sometime, our vehicle stopped and we were taken out of that suffocating thing. We had reached a new place and everything looked very unfamiliar. The houses were different from what I had always seen. From small mud houses and large fields, I was in a place which had a lot shabby looking people. All of us were quietly taken inside a house. Now I know that it was a place in Bihar where Nepalese girls are traded in return of cash. It was a never ending cycle and I was stuck in the cobweb of my my own fate. One fat lady dressed in sari and heavy jewelry came to us. She spit her paan out and she inspected each one of us closely. After her thorough inspection, she took a handful of girls with her. I wasn't her preference. I was sent back to the container with other girls. I was relieved as I thought I was going back home. After all, the God whom Maa prayed to each morning can't really be cruel.

After getting back to that dark suffocating container, we hit the road again and we went on a journey once again. I thought I was going home. I was happy that my prayers were answered so quick. I was hungry and I missed Maa and Baba. I thought of them and I closed my eyes. My eyes opened and I realized that I've been sleeping for sometime. The vehicle reached Delhi, the capital of India. We were in the area which hosted many brothels. We were taken inside a popular brothel of the city. It was hard to believe that brothels could be in such a busy market area. There was another dalal waiting for us inside the brothel. We were taken  

upstairs into a dark gloomy room. The inspection scene was repeated all over again. My heart was beating fast. I wanted to be rejected. But this time, the dalal liked me as he saw some potential inside me. I got selected and this is how my life in the brothel started. My 'owner'' started giving me a strange medicine. He told me that it will bring out the grace in my face. One day, a man, probably as the same age as Baba came to me. The dalal had sent him to 'deflower' me. I cried and tried to defend myself, but failed. I begged for mercy, but it was of no avail. It was a painful experience. I couldn't hold on to the pain and I collapsed on the floor. I had never felt dirtier in my life. Another girl, probably few years older to me, told me that this was a place where you could enter easily but could never even think of escaping. If Maa and Baba were here then I would never had to go through this pain. I wondered, do they miss me like I did?

This continued for sometime. They called me by the name  of 'Rajjo' and according to dalas, I pulled in potential customers because I was young. I wasn't given proper food for the fear that I might gain weight which will make my dalals lose their potential customers. Prostitution in this area was a business where one gained and the other only suffered. To make some money, we were handed over to people who tortured us the way they wanted to. Some treated me with love and some treated me like a piece of garbage. Different men came to me and my will eventually broke down. 


One day, after gathering much strength and courage, I tried to run away from the brothel. It had been more than two years. Quietly, I made towards the exit and ran as fast as I could. But alas, the dalal's informer caught me and he beat me up. He took me to his other men and everyone took turns to pounce upon me. After that, they took me to another brothel and locked me in a room. Only privileged customers were allowed inside that dark room. They shifted me from brothels with the fear that I might run again. They drugged me and made me unconscious so that I would not fight with the customers. 


I hated being drugged at first, but eventually I loved this state of mine. It made me do my work better and help me forget my pain. I've lost my childhood, my innocence, my parents, aborted my child. Life has nothing more to take  from me, yet I am dying everyday to be recognized as someone. I look out of the window of the brothel and see a customer coming. With a teary eye, I think of my Maa and Baba, for whom, probably I was dead by now. Well, perhaps a dead daughter is better than a daughter who is into this filthy. I close my eyes, wipe my tears and with a long deep breath, get back to the life and work of 'Rajjo".