Woman of Letters: Judge not, lest ye be judged

Dear Shweta, We live in a strange world.Violent rapists, men who have performed the most barbaric and gruesome acts of cruelty are featured in the media with their faces coyly covered, their identities duly hidden and yet, a woman of accomplishment, and talent, a woman who has obviously fallen on hard times, a woman unquestionably deserving of the world's sympathy and support, is paraded in headlines and breaking news across the country as a prostitute!Dear Shweta, I hang my head in shame for this; before I even begin this letter, please accept my apologies on behalf of the media for putting you through this ordeal.You deserve better.Now to the business of prostitution. Having spent a good amount of time researching a project in Kamatipura, Mumbai's hellhole of quotidian sex and unimaginable exploitation, I know a thing or two about what compels women to subject themselves and their bodies to this abuse.Quite simply: there are no other feasible options!Of course, some of the women in India's most notorious red light area are victims of abduction and human trafficking –but many are there by their own ' choice'.A choice that given their circumstances and the heavily loaded odds against them, they have no option but to capitulate.In the absence of family support, education, job skills and faced with a society that hardly respects women, in fact wastes no opportunity in demeaning and degrading them, most of the women sex workers, (the word prostitute is so heavily pejorative that it should be banished forthwith from usage) have little choice but to eke a living selling their most precious possession-themselves!The brutalising effect on them of this means of survival is so horrifying that most of the sex workers I have interviewed can only get through their days drugged and drunk out of their minds.We reside in our body. It is the temple of our souls, the sacred vessel of our existence; to have to bear the daily ignominy of strangers using it in any way they please, to satisfy their prurient lust is not a choice that any one would willingly opt for, why should we imagine that it would be yours willingly?"I was out of money. I had to support my family and some other good causes. All the doors were closed, and some people encouraged me to get into prostitution to earn money. I was helpless, and with no option left to choose, I got involved in this act." You are reported to have said in your statement to the authorities.Many years ago, when I was researching a story on Mumbai's underbelly of sleaze, I remember interviewing a streetwalker in Colaba. She used to take a train from Seven Bungalows Andheri in to town each evening to solicit clients off the streets to make a living. I asked this alumnus of a reputed convent school, why she did what she did." One brother wants to eat only pork, the other wants beef every day, the third wants chicken and my sisters need to be educated" she'd said, slurring her words, her mind already numbed by the substances she'd imbibed to get her through the night.Most of the sex workers I'd met had similarly stories of sacrifice and exploitation. In my mind they were not fallen women but heroes, women of immense almost super human courage and selflessness who ought to have been singled out for their life of supreme nobility rather than societal censure.So, Shweta I ask you to forgive us : the media who have used your sad predicament and the circumstances of your arrest to garner TRPs; those who have judged you by their middle class yardsticks of propriety and decorum; and lastly this cruel world, which could not give a talented actress the dignity of fulfilling her talent.I hope it all works out for you and you are afforded the work that you so richly deserve. You know you are worth far far more than what those men (whose names are conveniently concealed) paid for your body.Remember there are still good people in the world who see beyond your present crisis and take a measured view of what this world is all about. I hope you meet them.And please, whatever you do, do not accept an offer to appear in the next Bigg Boss. You deserve better.You always have.With every good wish,Yours sincerely etcMalavika Sangghvi can be contacted at malavikasmumbai@gmail.comThe writer believes in the art of letter writing