‘Achhe din yahan kabhi nahi aayenge’

Two months ago, in the sultry humid heat of Mumbai’s Kamathipura lanes—infamous for its ‘red light’ area—I stood on a rickety narrow lane waiting for the campaign rally of former Congress MP Milind Deora to arrive. Election fever was high, and amid the fast building ‘Modi fever’, candidates from all parties were thrusting in a little extra effort to win voters’ heart before the polling day hit.

Anticipation was bubbling in my blood, I was curious to see how politicians interacted with sex workers. The lane on which I stood had dim yellow Chinese lights adorning 100 by 100 square feet rooms stacked like tiny matchboxes on either side of the road.

Just then, a woman, in her mid-thirties, stepped out of her door. With a ragged deep-blue lose nightgown, she looked anything unlike a sex worker. Thwarting the common notion of sex workers wearing bright red lipstick, gajra in their hair and vibrant sequin laced saris, she simply stood with her thick wavy hair tied up in a bun looking evidently desperate for a man to step into her room in exchange of a few hundred rupees.

She looked at me with calculating eyes. With laptop bag hanging on my right shoulder, a notepad in my hand and anxious stares pressing in from all around, she knew I was in a foreign land.

“This is not a place safe enough to stand for long, people will think wrong about you. What are you doing here?” she asked me. “I am here to cover the election rally, I am a journalist” I replied, to which she loudly laughed and said, “Madam, politicians don’t come to this part of Kamathipura. They will visit the residential areas. They don’t have the balls to stop and talk to us.”

Intrigued, I decided to talk more to her—Manisha, was her name. Her husband had kicked the bucket several years ago after which she shifted to Mumbai from Delhi to sustain her young boy. With no money in hand, distant relatives not interested in supporting her, and no source of employment (she was uneducated), entering the sex trade was the only option left for her.

“I am in this business for over eight years now. It’s not really that tough, Men enter our room for ten minutes and I earn my bread and butter. My boy can go to a school to study,” she explained the logic quite simply. While she earned in thousands few years back when their business was booming, she confided that with policemen doing far too many rounds now, truck drivers and waiters (her usual clients) are scared to enter the lanes. Her income has shrunk to a few hundred now.

I glanced at her room. Through a few inches gap between the curtains, I could make out three other women sitting inside. They take turns to occupy the room, Manisha explained. Whichever woman a man chooses to sleep with gets to take over the room for the required time during which the others wait outside. “Cost of renting a room is very high,” said Manisha, who, despite the hardships and frequent shame she is subjected to by the cops, looked steel faced and self dependent.

The world here was different. Unlike other assembly pockets where politicians could touch topics of water, shelter or inflation, these lanes had a realm of issues which were uncomfortably out of a politician’s gambit to probe into. The women here wanted a fair share of respect for them and their kids, no politician could buy that for them.

To top it all, the red light area in Kamathipura is majorly a population comprising migratory crowd. Women from the north have shifted here in search of employment. Therefore with no voter’s card, they hold no importance for several politicians. Their number is insignificant to create a dent in the votes.

A week was left before the polling day and not even a single politician had stopped by to interact with these women. “They don’t care whether we live or die. And we don’t care who wins or loses,” said Salma, another sex worker who joined us shortly afterwards. She was close to fourties, and I knew she had only handful years left before she would hit menopause and lose her clientele. “We have several issues but we don’t depend on politicians to solve them. We find our own way out,” she said.

On ground, these women don’t have a government for their well-being and despite all this they don’t criticize like we do. “Roads are horrible, the food prices are soaring, there is no cap on inflation….blah blah,” is what I hear everywhere. Over here, there is just one issue-- “We don’t have money to survive”—to which they have found a solution on their own.

Sex work is something they have accepted gracefully.

“I know neither BJP nor Congress will do anything for us. We have to earn on our own. In the last so many years, no politician has stopped by and talked to us. Even if they enter this lane during their rally, they purposely keep their heads straight, smile and walk away,” said Manisha. I was surprised to know that these women had never heard of the struggling Aam Aadmi Party, let alone knowing who its candidate from South Mumbai was.

The cops show no mercy either. Every alternate day, they round up men and women and demand Rs 2,000 from each. While sex workers in Kamathipura earn Rs 800 per day on an average, shelling off Rs 2,000 is beyond their capacity.

I decided to come back again and check on them post elections.

Now, a month after BJP has strongly taken over the center, I called up Manisha. As confident as ever, she said, “I told you nothing will change for us even if the government changes. Achhe din yahan kabhi nahi aayenge.”

And I knew she was right. This job-less sect has been conveniently forgotten and left to fend on its own.

(Pictures courtesy: Prashant Nadkar, The Indian Express)

The Two Extreme Political Cardinals

Two years back when Rahul Gandhi visited my university and addressed the college-crowd, I thought he depicted the epitome of leadership, his poise had a striking resemblance to the Late PM Rajiv Gandhi, his humbleness promised pure and clean politics, his communication was confident, fluent and filled with conviction, and he invoked a sense of faith in his listeners….I thought ‘finally’ India will be governed by a deserving candidate.

Now, in 2012, the unshakeable trust grounded in my heart has somewhat lost its foundation and I question the future of India if it ever lies in his captaincy.

Reason: Very simple. He took the Gandhi name for granted for far too long. He made several promises to the underprivileged, but fulfilled very few. He kept mum during the Anna Hazare campaign when actually he should have voiced his opinion loud and clear. And lastly, he failed to win even a single seat for Congress in his own constituency (Amethi)! Too much hype had been created, too much faith had been bestowed and too many projections had been made about this man, but he failed blatantly. The only reason this man is still valued is because of the surname that he tags along with his name. He is the fourth generation to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has dominated the Congress party, and to a large extent Indian politics. I believe almost every Indian inevitably grounds his faith in the Gandhi family, and the reason why Congress has survived for so long is because the Gandhi pack holds its reins.

But the magic-wand of Sonia Gandhi is losing its charm and her well-projected son just faced a massive blow in UP polls. Where Rahul emerged as an utter flop-show in this year’s elections, an unheard name meticulously worked hard to win a trusted position in Uttar Pradesh. A man named Akhilesh Yadav. This no-nonsense tech savvy man, invariably accompanied by an iPad that dangles by his side, a Anna-like topi adorning his head  and an unassuming non-flamboyant air that follows him, brought glory to Samajwadi Party at an early age of 38. Very little is known about Akhilesh, but from what I collected, I understand he is a man if grit, determination and humility. He never disclosed his identity (that of being Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son) in his college, nor did he use his ever so-strong political connections for his benefit. Where on one end, Rahul was nurtured and publicly exhibited as the future face of Congress party, the latter was kept under-cover and educated thoroughly. While there have been uncountable rumours about Rahul being arrested with his Columbian girlfriend in Boston, Akhilesh has thrived with a clean image in our minds. Both represent extreme ends of politics, and both rely on purely opposite tactics of winning over people. Rahul travelled in local trains to manifest his so-called ‘common-man’ image, while Akhilesh actually took his image of being a common man seriously. He flies by economy class every time, unlike the flamboyant chopper trips of Rahul Gandhi.

But above all, what swept me away is his honest attempt to develop UP. I recently heard that Akhilesh Yadav has created a Facebook page where he’ll be inviting suggestions for UP’s development. Now doesn’t this remind you of Anil Kapoor’s ‘Nayak’?  What Style, What Optimism and What Charisma. 

This man is here to transform the face of politics, and for good!

I hope Uttar Pradesh’s youngest chief minister will induce development with a pinch of technology and a slice of education.  

After all he is what every Indian yearns for in politics, young, dynamic and most importantly literate.