Who is bad?
‘Babuji,
please give me 50 Rs, please, . I need to buy medicines for my mother. She is very
sick’ .Bindiya was pleading to every passerby.
‘Oh, you dirt,
fuck off. You are stinking badly. And don’t you dare touch me again; else I
will suffer from all your diseases. GOD only knows who all touch you and your
mother .HUH!’
The area
where Bindiya was running after people was a Red light area. Her mother was
seriously ill and needed immediate attention. Her mother also came from the
same profession and was transferred with a number of diseases. When the little
girl found no hope for getting some money for medicines, she returned back
home. Her mother lay on the broken bed, coughing badly. Bindiya offered her
some water and started cooking some food.
After her
work, the ten year old Bindiya sat near the window and started reading the busy
street.
In between that hustle and bustle, she noticed
that women, who were showing their skin through sari, were given money and
taken away. She kept on observing, a woman shows her waist or displays her legs
is offered money. No matter how old or young she was.
She went running to her mother and asked about
this. Her mother, forgetting every pain of hers, jumped out of bed and gave her
a tight hug.
‘Come here my
baby and don’t look at them. They are not nice people’.
‘Who is not
nice mother; the people offering money or the females offering themselves?’
Her mother
was dumbstruck. This was an unanswered question since ages
What answer
would she have given, when she herself was in this business .Yes, she was a
prostitute and everyone who once fucked her, has now left her to die.
She still
remembers the day when out of ignorance and trauma of her husband’s sudden demise,
she sat near the foothpath, with little Bindiya sleeping on her lap. Suddenly a
bike came, without even putting down the engine, the man offered her a good
some of money and held her hand.
She
immediately pulled her hand back fearing some bad to happen. The man thinking,
she was not satisfied with the amount,
offered just the double of it and now the bundle caught her eyes.
‘Why are
you giving this to me?’Asked the ignorant mother
‘Come on;
as if you don’t know anything. What do you suppose men do at this place? This isn’t
MNC.It is a red light area. Are you not sitting here to sell yourself? Are you
here just by mistake? You must be kidding.’ He laughed sarcastically
Then she
realized the fact that she was in the wrong place. But she needed money also
for her daughter, so not thinking too much she accepted the offer.Sicne then
she was into it but always tried to keep her daughter away from all this. She
wanted Bindiya to get educated and turn into a respective individual.
She was lost
in all such thoughts when she didn’t even realize that her daughter was again
standing in the queue to offer herself. This time the innocent girl tore her
frock from waist and shoulder to show her innocent skin. A buyer was about to
take Bindiya when her mother came running and rescued her.
She took her
daughter back to their room, took some random medicine to satisfy her and acted
being absolutely fine. Seeing her mother like that, Bindiya took a sigh of
relief.
‘Look baby, I
am alright now. I don’t need any medicines and so you don’t have to worry about
medicines and stand in that queue’.
After this incidence,
her mother decided that she won’t let other little girls also let in this dirty
business. She left that area, and nobody stopped her as she was a ‘Not for Use’
commodity now.
One step that
her mother took to bring a change in the society against all these evils was
commendable. She prepared a banner that read;
' If you are with me against the crime
of child prostitution, come and leave an impression of your palm on the canvas
and take a pledge that from now on wards whenever and wherever you find such
crimes taking place, you won’t sit quiet : '
Slowly people started coming and joined her.
There were hundreds of palm impressions on the canvas and thousands of smiles.
She soon opened
a ‘Home’ is a small room and took care
of all the young girls of that area while their mothers were busy in offering
themselves and earning money.