The 16-year-old who was born to a sex worker and abandoned by her parents, didn't stop dreaming. On Tuesday, she returned from a 6-week summer programme in the US.
Born to a sex worker who abandoned her, an absentee father who couldn’t care less... Sexually abused, trafficked and growing up in Kamathipura — the city’s red-light district.
Despite the coming together of so many formidable circumstances, 16-year-old Pinky Sheikh has proven she is no victim. Back from a six-week special summer programme in music and dance at Minnesota in the US, this ecstatic teen was greeted by shouts and screams from friends who are staying at Kranti, the organisation, which empowers girls from Mumbai’s red-light areas to become agents of social change.
Once the excited screaming took a rest, Pinky headed to Andheri to meet her aunt Zarina who she calls ‘Mummy’. Stuck in the evening traffic, the taillights playing on her face added to the myriad mixed feelings stirring in her heart. En route dna struck up a conversation. “You know everything was so orderly, clean and nice there. Why can’t we have the same here?” she asks, admitting, “While leaving I almost felt do I have to?”
She remembers how she was the eldest in her class which had several 14 and 15-year-olds from across the world. “I bonded with the participants from Vietnam, Russia and Iran. I’m going to keep in touch on Facebook and email with them,” she said, straightening her glasses with a glance in the rear-view mirror.
Pinky says she wouldn’t have stayed back. “Now that I have taken this step and come back successful, I want to work with other girls caught in circumstances like mine, helping them find inner strength,” she says, sounding much wiser than her age. “I was helped on this path by Robin Chaurasiya of Kranti and I will feel happy to be there for others.”
Pinky was almost going to miss this life-changing experience because of the red-tape and delay in issuance of a passport. We ask if she is bitter. “Now that I have travelled and come back, there is less bitterness but I do feel the system needs to re-look at problems faced in acquiring documents for girls like me.”
A proud Chaurasiya,whose women’s rights NGO provides a healing home, education and personalised opportunities to empower and equip India’s trafficked girls, sex workers, and other socially disadvantaged young women with the knowledge, skills and confidence to build futures and become agents of change in their communities, felt Pinky will be a role model for all the girls and women.
“We put her on plane with a ticket and bare minimum instructions and see how she managed to change flights, flag cabs and get there and back on her own,” she points out, “It is a big deal for a girl who has never taken a flight ever before or travelled out of the city on her own.”
With an affectionate arm around Pinky, Chaurasiya fondly points, “Her growth in confidence was almost palpable the moment she stepped out of the airport. There’s no stopping her now.” A shy giggle escapes the young girl.
Near Andheri when the traffic has stopped even crawling we ask her if her mother knows of her sojourn. “I don’t know where she is and I don’t want to talk about her. If she didn’t care for me, why should I?” she asks, and adds, “I would keep crying in the past over my life.
But now after coming to Kranti I have realised how long will people commiserate. I don’t want be a victim but a fighter, a successful one.”
More power to her...
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