Sonagachi‘s Strength
What the art of travel teaches the empathetic listener
“The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known.”
-Viktor Shklovsky
Viktor Shklovsky’s theory of defamiliarization (ostranenie) emphasizes art’s singular ability to deepen the sensitivity of our perception. Art makes the ordinary surreal, normalizes the absurd. It complicates us. If this complication defines an art form, traveling is an art itself. Faces, scenes, buildings, architecture, strangers, clothing, even the very texture of a paved street become foreign, turn strange. The art of travel uses place as its medium, empathy and awareness its purpose.
I am reminded of this quote while on a brief holiday in Darjeeling. The fog-crowned ‘Queen of the Hills’ is known for views that take your breath away at an altitude that already does so with frequency. Kangchenjunga, the third highest mountain, hovers above a cloudy horizon with arresting clarity, complemented by the intimacy of the tiny tourist town. On a clear night, the saturated Milky Way is framed by the steep inclines of the narrow winding streets. Horizon, sky, stars, clouds—all take on a new significance at 6000 feet in the air.
Yet Kolkata, with its crowds, smog, and crumbling roads, offers stories and paradigm shifts of its own. It is rich with the same street-smart beauty I find in New York and LA. Sonagachi, Kolkata’s red-light area of international infamy, has the same chaos and contrast that LA’s Skid Row offers. The dirt and disarray complement the bright flashes of colorful saris, the monsoon gloom highlights the sparkle of the heavily bejeweled men and women here.
Mita’s Story: The Beauty of Strength
Even amidst colorful personalities, Mita stands out. The first time I saw her, she was wearing a gorgeous green silk sari with her slim wrists encircled in stacks of bangles. She struck me with her confidence and fashionability. We spoke briefly about her life after being rescued by the SRBs.
Today, for my independent interview with her, she is wearing a bright pink kameez tunic and jeans. She lacks the traditional Indian trifecta of adornment: two golden earrings and jeweled nose stud. Instead, she has a ring of sandstone and a ring of pearl. The nails on her left hand are long, very long, and patterned pink. The nails on her right hand, in common Bengali fashion, are trimmed short for mealtime efficiency.
Even though she is by all appearances dressed-down, her petite figure’s gestures and grace still distinguish her. Her story reaffirms this dignity, providing a context from which her singular charm seems almost inevitable. Mita, 24, is a singer. Even her laugh is musical as she recounts her desperate desire for fame when she was young. She spent all her time after school at music classes, invoking first the amusement and then the irritation of her family as her dream persisted into adolescence. One day, a family friend told her she could come to Kolkata to continue learning music and so she went. She would work as a maid to pay for her classes. She would live by the talent she loved.
At 16, after years of working as a maid or nanny and singing in her free time, she arrived in Sonagachi to look for work. Unaware that this was a red-light area, she was invited to join ‘the line’ (to enter sex work). Upon arrival, she was brought before Durbar’s Self-Regulatory Board who explained what this region was and what working ‘the line’ entailed. She received an open discussion with the board members about the risks and dangers of this area, as well as the extensive support that the DMSC offers. Finally, after 3 days in a safety home, she was asked whether she wanted to return to her family or work in an alternative position (because she was a minor, she would not be allowed to join sex work).
After working as a receptionist, then a member of the cultural wing, she now serves as a board member on the very SRBs that rescued her many years ago. Mita’s refinement come from many years of singing lessons but her strength is hidden somewhere deeper. My interviews are concerned with the counseling services that are available to the women here, and when I asked her who she talks to in times of trouble, she answers again with a laugh. “No one,” my translator relays with his own smile. “She says she doesn’t need to talk to anyone.” After a little probing, she explains that when she was little, before she ran away to follow her singing dreams, she used to talk with her step-mother. Mita explains:
“After so many negative reactions, I stopped talking. I sang instead.”
Paradigm Shifts and a Lesson in Expectations
My initial expectation as I planned my research was that the support services here were desperately lacking. The SRBs offer extensive vocational counseling, in the perhaps odd form of helping a woman decide whether or not prostitution is the best fit for her. Considering the abuse that colors many sex-workers pasts and the under-addressed issue of child sexual abuse here (see Bitter Chocolate for an exploration of CSA in India), I assumed trauma counseling would be a great need in this community.
However, as Mita and others have expressed, if there is a lack of such support, the women themselves don’t feel that way. Rather, their community of peer educators, of fellow sex workers, of retired workers, of matronly malkins (madams), of sympathetic babus (regular clients) have been consistently rated as ‘safe’, ‘comfortable’, and ‘understanding’. Of course, this refers only to their perceptions of the community members they choose to speak to, rather than the community at-large. Still, even strong Mita claims that her stoicism regarding her past isn’t due to a lack of ready listeners.
Rather, she takes pride in her strength and determination. Once again, I find myself awe-inspired but this time it is accompanied by a good dose of empathy and surprise. Sonagachi has continued to contradict my expectation of sadness and despair. More importantly, the people I’ve met here have done me the service of complicating my perceptions of mental health, of the application of rights, and of understanding beauty. Mita exemplifies how a striking personality or a particularly arresting face offer stories and surprise to the sympathetic listener. India has been a constant river of experience and often it’s hard to stop the current to really explore the depths. The challenge is always rewarding, and in the best of circumstances, enlightening.
