Sonagachi goes virtual 

Ruby daubs a bit of rouge on her cheeks and puts on a red dress. She has a little more than an hour to make a video call to her client before her husband returns from the local liquor den. Struggling to make ends meet, she has given her husband the hundred rupee note she had kept saved and told him to go get groceries.

She knows the fate of the money: the husband, having been denied a visit to the local watering hole for so long, will use it to get sloshed. Ruby has done this bit of manoeuvring to be able to entertain her client over the phone and get some money wire-transferred into her account. An hour on a video call can fetch her anything between Rs 1,000-2,000 and, if she’s lucky, the client will be hooked for a few months.

Clients have kinky demands and catering to such caprice can become difficult, especially when net connectivity is poor and the voltage fluctuates after sundown. But perhaps the most difficult part is to manage a few hours alone while being in the midst of family.

Ruby is one of the 4,000 ‘floating’ sex workers who used to travel regularly from the hinterland to Asia’s biggest red light area--Sonagachi--in north Kolkata. Many do this to supplement the measly incomes of their husbands, who are mostly wastrels. But in the past four months since the Covid-induced lockdown began, these floating sex workers have been reduced to a hand-to-mouth existence. Trains are yet to resume services and travelling in private vehicles like vans and buses is expensive. The brothels too are yet to resume business; the 7,000-odd sex workers who live in the red light area are managing somehow by providing ‘virtual’ services online and with rations and other assistance from sympathisers. As for the rest, the 4,000 or so who commute to the city, their lives have become challenging.

Ever since the lockdown imposed strict restrictions on ‘business’ in Sonagachi, a majority of the residents have opted for online services. Old contacts are being entertained through video-calls, obviously at a nominal rate. The “high-class, A category” sex workers, who used to charge between Rs 25,000-30,000 a night, are now happy to negotiate for Rs 5,000 for it is important for them to stay in the business, pamper the clients. They have spacious rooms and independent arrangements and can cater to whatever the clients demand. “But for the ‘floating’ lot like us, getting an independent space to operate is difficult. Renting a room is a risky proposition at this time because there’s no guarantee we’ll get paid. A promise over a call means nothing,” says Poddyo, who stays in South 24 Parganas and commutes by train in the afternoon for a few hours of business in the red-light area.

The pitfalls in going online are real too. Jhuma (not her real name), a sex worker, says she has been cheated several times. Clients did not transfer the promised amounts to her account; some have changed their SIM cards and can’t be contacted now.

The option of phone-sex was always there. Satisfied outstation clients used to keep in contact with their favourites, connecting with them whenever they felt the need for some boisterous distractions, and sending money or gifts in exchange. But times are difficult now. Even the big spender clients are finding the going tough and have no “me-time” for such escapades.

“Clients want us to make calls at unseemly hours. There are different rates for messages, Whatsapp calls, video calls and chat shows. Those who have hi-speed internet can do this, and can obviously hike their rates,” says Jhuma. But for the majority, making long phone calls without definite assurance of payment amounts to a waste of time and money.

Jaba, who used to earn around Rs 25,000 a month, has not been able to earn even half that after the Unlock started. “I used to work in the evening, between 6-9.30 pm, and would return home on the last train. But now that I am stuck at home with family, how can I take time out in the evening? The clients pay Rs 500 and that too after repeated reminders and requests. I have stopped phone sex and am selling the masks that I stitch at home now. At least that brings in Rs 50-100 a day,” says Jaba.

But for some like Baishakhi, Lata and Rumpa, the virtual service has been a boon. “We are in touch with our regulars. If they can’t transfer money, they deliver it through friends or come to the locality and ask us to meet. I have got medicines, Vitamin tablets and money to stock rations from a client,” says Lata. Many of the sex workers have been paying their rent with the help of clients. For the big-ticket sex workers, monthly rent comes to around Rs 70,000 while for the B category it is around Rs 20,000. The landlords had waived the rent for the first three months of the lockdown, but from July onwards they have had to pay. “You can understand that we are in dire need. We get rations and cooked food from time to time but what about other necessities?” asks Noori, one of the ‘A’ category sex workers.

Mahasweta Mukherjee, advocacy officer at Durbar Samannyay Samiti, an NGO which works for the well being of sex workers, says the organisation has been providing ration kits in August and will do so for September, but she doesn’t know if such assistance will be feasible till the end of the year. The organisation supports close to 65,000 sex workers all over the state.

“Some of them have resumed business, but secretly. We are insisting on the hygiene part and have held extensive workshops to educate them on SOPs for entertaining clients,” adds Mukherjee. The parallel economy, like the liquor shops, the rolls and chaat centres, have also lifted their shutters now and then, perhaps in anticipation that business will pick up soon. Sonagachi is not just about the 11,000 sex workers here, it is a source of livelihood for another 60,000-odd people.

“The revenues generated from here are huge; a report published 15 years ago had pegged the monthly income at Rs 2.5 crore,” said Dr Smarajit Jana, director of the Sonagachi Research and Training Institute. With some 25,000 to 30,000 clients on any given weekend in normal times, the revenue generated would be around a crore over two days now.

The people are now desperate for things to go back to some level of normalcy. Right now, there are no reported Covid positive cases from inside Sonagachi. “Brothels are considered to be a den of all diseases even in normal times. But perhaps it’s time to tell people that the coronavirus has not been able to invade the world of sex workerseven though Sonagachi was hemmed in by containment zones (Nilmoni Mitra street and Durgacharan Mitra street). At some point we’ll have to consider if we can allow business to continue in bits and pieces,” says Mukherjee.

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