Three sisters of Natpurwa by Paromita Ukil Three young prostitutes took a determined step—it became giant leap for womenkind, particularly for the women of Natpurwa. Natpurwa is a village of prostitutes. Prostitution has been the tradition here for 400 years, since the time of Badshah Akbar and his adversary, Rana Pratap. Five sisters and two brothers of the Nat community came to these parts as part of the Rajput king’s army. They got left behind and the local zamindar housed them where Natpurwa is today. From time to time he enjoyed the sexual favours of the five sisters in return for the generosity shown by him. From there on, Natpurwa evolved into a full-fledged village of prostitutes. Around 30 years ago, three sisters, who were also in the business like everybody else, decided they would not let their youngest fourth sister join them. Together they got her married and thus delivered her from a life of ignominy and insecurity. A life with very brief shelf life. “Do ya char bachche ho gayey to retire ho gayee”. She retires after two or four kids. Today the Three Sisters have also retired. It is a very different life now—a life of farming and family, with sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren. There are no elderly men in their families, no husbands that is, only their sons. Two of these sisters have a son each: Guddubhai, who is an Asha volunteer at Lalpur, and Rambabu, who teaches at the Asha school in Natpurwa. Guddubhai’s mother is the eldest of the three pioneering sisters. She is around 60 now. Talking about the old days and how they turned the tides, her face comes alive with emotion and determination. Time has not diminished her fervour to alleviate the suffering of Natpurwa’s prostitutes. You can make out she must have been a bold and energetic woman in her younger days. She can read and write Urdu, the language of love and lovemaking, she also received training in kathak and in matters of poise and conduct that would make her a desirable courtesan in the old-world culture of charm and indulgent flirtation. Beneath that veneer of indolent charm lay naked suffering. Guddubhai’s mother was acutely aware of that. She wanted to change all that. And she did, when she and her sisters got their fourth sister married. She is a heroine of our times. Unknown and unsung. A woman who changed the course of destiny of not only her contemporaries, but also of the future generations of Natpurwa’s women. A silent revolution is still going on in this village carried on by mothers and their sons. Marriage means emancipation When the fourth sister got married around 30 years ago, it was the first marriage in centuries in Natpurwa. Once you are married, you are delivered from prostitution. Here, marriage means emancipation. Only unmarried girls are pushed into prostitution. That is why 14-15 is a very vulnerable age for Natpurwa’s girls. It is all the more so if your mother (there are very few fathers in Natpurwa’s families even today) is unable to provide for the family. As it is she has no land to her name. Her brother banished her from the parent family long ago, depriving her of her rights to the family property. These are brothers she had fed and even sent to school with the money she earned by selling her body. At the time her body was family asset. Now she has been abandoned to fend for herself. After a few years in the business, she had ended up having four or five children. Her young boys, who should have been in primary school, end up working as labourers in her brother’s farms. Options begin to close one after another because she is getting on in years. After a few years of bitter struggle, a new one emerges: her daughter is growing up. Whether she wants it or not, her teenage daughter’s prostitution seems to be the only choice she is left with. On the other side of this extreme reality lies abject poverty. Prostitution is not a choice any more. It is a compulsion. The little girl has now been inducted. The brothers need not work on the farms any more. They start going to school now because their sister is earning for the family. When they grow up they too will banish her from the family. That is the general pattern in Natpurwa. That is how the cycle of poverty, exploitation and prostitution goes on. In the reverse gear of market forces Chatting over chai with Three Sisters of Natpurwa, it emerged almost 75 per cent of the girls in the village had been married. Prostitution was well on its way out. Till about 7-8 years ago. One of the girls had been married to man in Sandila town, 18 km from Natpurwa. That man came into contact with a pimp in Bombay. An idea then entered his head, of how to get rich quick, He sent for his wife’s sister. She was 14 years old. Innocent of all the machinations, she walked into her Jeejaji’s (brother-in-law) trap with complete trust. In no time she found herself in Bombay. It was not long before she became a full-fledged whore. The initial anger and indignation by her family died too soon. Nobody minded very much. The girl was earning much, much more than any family had ever earned in Natpurwa. Soon the women of her family started making a display of their newly acquired gold chains, thanks to all the money she was remitting home. The family now had many more goodies, hitherto unknown because of their hand-to-mouth existence. Tape recorders and a television set were now being bought with gusto. These are possessions that, in an instant, catapult you to an elite status in Natpurwa society. Thus economic insecurity gave way to tempation. A new trend began. A trend that offset all that the Three Sisters had attained by creating a new tradition. Today, there are around 150 families in Natpurwa. Fifty per cent of these families are involved in prostitution. Fifteen girls are in Bombay at present. Two have returned following disease. Of the 75 total students at Asha Vidyalaya, 45 are children of prostitutes. These women are Natpurwa residents, who have clients coming to them from Lucknow, Sandila, etc. Lucknow is 70 km from Natpurwa. In this backdrop, Asha Vidyalaya, the only school in the village, stands out as a powerful symbol of hope. Though the classes held here are that of kindergarten, I, II and III, the school is a force in itself, an instrument of change. Three brothers (cousins, really) are today at the helm of this silent revolution: Rambabu, Neelkamalbhai (regular teachers at the school) and Guddubhai, who visits frequently from Lalpur. Together, they have vowed they will wipe out prostitution from Natpurwa. Their zeal is remarkable. As if they want to wipe out the invisible mark of Cain they wear on their forehead owing to the history of their birth. May God give them the strength, and Asha Parivar all the support they need. Only then perhaps one day the revolution set rolling by the Three Sisters will attain its logical culmination—where Natpurwa’s women will have choices other than prostitution before them.