I was drawn towards Kamathipura, curious and enthused with an academic idealism and naïveté, proceeding with an assurance to find enough contentions necessary for a graduation thesis in architecture with social justice as premise. This very assurance stemmed from my cinematic perception of the infamous neighbourhood, even before laying foot on my assumed potential ground, only to find that I was not the first or the last to arrive at its threshold, seeking.
A familiar Kamathipura featured in the 2018 Mrunal Thakur starrer, Love, Sonia, with brothels thriving on trafficking young women from rural hinterlands, tricked through promises of lucrative employment in the heart of Maximum City. A 2019 raid rescuing 141 girls held behind trap doors and steel cages, raised a poignant question바카라how long will art continue imitating life?
On my very first visit, I chose to stop at Nagpada junction, deflecting any speculation or even momentary judgement from the cab driver. For these reasons, the proposition of my work was titled Destigmatising Kamathipura, aimed to envision a 바카라future perfect바카라 version, farthest from its singular and skewed public imagination, while giving utmost consideration to the lives that are definitive of its reputation. Sitting back in the cab, looking out towards tall high rises of the island city, I became conscious that the project should not be a cannibalistic undertaking, where it바카라s flourishing is at the expense of the bodies that bear the brunt of making an often heard 바카라... Mumbai is safer for women than New Delhi, thanks to Kamathipura...바카라 analogy. Much like the bodies with sclerosis who constructed the dreamscape skylines credited to real-estate giants. But now as I think of it in retrospective, ironically, that is exactly how it has always been with every outsider who sought anything from Kamathipura; those coming to it driven by a self-actualising creative urge or a primordial sexual urge. I remember Ganesh Gaitonde바카라s reference in Vikram Chandra바카라s novel Sacred Games to Mumbai as a Saatvik city that has only 바카라given바카라. Kamathipura too bears those very attributes; it is Mumbai in a microcosm.
Landing at the Nagpada junction, I spotted a recent installation of a towering Indian Tricolour바카라redolent of the 1950s constitutional promises of Justice, Liberty, Equality & Fraternity, and Sahir Ludhianvi바카라s Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par Woh Kahaan Hai? from Guru Dutt바카라s 1957 movie Pyaasa바카라hoisted across a street where these very values of sacrosanct enshrinement have always been overlooked by the state and the people. In the 50s, the neighbourhood, though a shred of the British colonial legacy, escaped Morarji Desai바카라s crackdowns on 바카라social vices바카라 in the city, setting up a precedent that allowed these so-called 바카라immoral바카라 activities to perpetuate unabated till date as a 바카라necessary evil바카라 to maintain the sanity of the large male migrant work force in Mumbai. As for the passers-by, life goes on, with minuscule engagement from this spooky 바카라eye-sore바카라 of a place. Thus, ignoring it with eyes closed, as if in deep meditative contemplation바카라is the most effective method to bypass, than confront the societal bias that labels this place as the city바카라s only vice district, where female autonomy has had an upper hand. Apart from its history of trafficking and violence, Kamathipura has been host to women hailing from far flung areas, granting them safety and anonymity to solicit for their livelihood.
To tread such a sensitive subject and diverse territory, there is a range of convenience operational for every outsider, who took both digs and chances to narrate its story. Kamathipura바카라s reputation has always been, as what was intended by the state바카라a container of all degenerate influences, a cesspool where all activities deemed immoral were tolerated. The likes of Guru Dutt, Saadat Hasan Manto, Mira Nair and Sahir Ludhianvi, might have disagreed with the 바카라cesspool바카라 attribution, as it was the exact same space, brimming with an undercurrent of 바카라interesting바카라 conflicts and characters that served as inspiration for celluloid, prose & poetry. Or a graduate thesis like mine, chartering into a contested academic venture, in an area where people suffer from 바카라research fatigue바카라 being subjects of numerous studies and documentaries, attracting film-making professionals from as far as Russia and the United Kingdom, to no avail. The only glory derived from such a venture thus is reserved for the artist바카라the outsider, becoming names to reckon with, while their character inspirations lurk in absentia. In the process, the naĂŻve seekers become the humane among humans back home, to acknowledge and feel for their subjects바카라the ill-fated downtrodden and the marginal.Â
바카라... Unlike the physical landscape of a city or a place, that is static in scale and size, the imagined landscape can expand or shrink based on one바카라s experience... Kamathipura just occupies a blip in the imagined landscape of a large population, any project there, should try and attempt to make that blip a blob... to underpin that it is not as monotonous as they think it is...바카라 This advice from Danish Husain helped me to make a resounding judgement on a lot of works that I had come across. Mira Nair바카라s Indian Cabaret (1985) and Salaam Bombay (1988) did that 바카라exercise in expanding imagination바카라 exceptionally well, to portray the lives of the invisible yet omnipresent and anonymous characters 바카라 Chai Pao (the protagonist), Sola Saal (a 16-year-old Nepali girl), and Chillim (the drug peddler). More so, establishing the Salaam Baalak Trust was an act of sisterhood making things come full circle 바카라 of taking, as well as giving back. The extra miles treaded despite receiving worldwide acclaim was definitive of how Kamathipura was approached by a woman, as opposed to men.
Every relationship is summed up on what note one finally decides to part ways. It was why I was sceptical of a Bhansali venture musing KamÂathiÂpura. His previous enterprise Padmaavat applied too broad brushes, distorting my notion of the Tricolour in Nagpada and elsewhere, of saffron valour and barbaric greÂens, befitting the politics of convenience from who is considered the master of aesthetic and colour. Would such an attempt of convenient categorisations encapsulate the diversity of Kamathipura? I did speculate back then, that even if it does not bear the nuance to showcase how the neighbourhood has harboured a sub-Âculture바카라a melting pot; accommodating the subÂaltern outcasts바카라transgenders, sex workers, the homeless pavement dwellers, while accompanied with all accoutrements of dramatised glamour, typical of the Bhansali universe, there won바카라t be as a strong backlash of misrepresentÂing a factual place and people. More so to name it after Gangubai, who did exist, with an ease, unlike the ordeal of his former project; a fiction originally composed by Malik Muhammad Jayasi with last moment spelling alterations, a courtesy to the outraged public sentiments. Â
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A Tumblr thread narrating experiences of a woman said 바카라... sex workers & trafficked women have been saying this forever. Your fathers, husbands, brothers, co-workers & friends바카라they come to us and do disgusting things. They pick us out because we resemble you. They call us by your names. Every single night, I hear, 바카라My wife/girlfriend is a prude...바카라 They make excuses that they have to do this because you won바카라t let them.... they go back to being grateful that we exist to absorb this violence, so that they don바카라t have to deal with it바카라Š바카라 Kamathipura represents subject matters and characters that can be easily borrowed, and gotten away with a good riddance, as other subjects, even fiction (like Padmaavat), don바카라t relent as much freedom. In the purview of the Bhansali-fied layering on Kamathipura, 바카라the gaze바카라 with which the curious and the interested have through sheer accident of birth escaped the fate met by those who바카라ve found acceptance within these 16 바카라unsavoury바카라 bylanes; the area seems to be a Sankat-Mochan, addressing the seekings of all those who seek, yet paying a price in a currency of countless human bodies and potentialities nipped in the bud. Perhaps, that is why the founder of Dalit Panther movement, and a Kamathipura insider, poet Namdeo Dhasal, wrote of the area in anticipation, 바카라... This is pain wearing a dancer바카라s anklets... I go beyond all the pleasures and pains of whoring and wait, for your lotus to bloom.바카라 Â
Giving and blessing all along its existence, while itself staying unchanged, as a recurring subject that needs saving or sanitisation. An archival of 바카라what could바카라ve been바카라 of the thousands trafficked. Its portrayal consistently stoking gratefulness among all those on its other side, composing prose and poetry, and profiteering from it, making the naĂŻve, wise바카라with a currency, so expensive. I wonder how much permeates beyond a cinematic moment of truth and staged artistic representation of all its shades. Amid its contradictions, fulfilling all kinds of extractive intents, the resilient existence of the vice district and its overlap with devotees headed to temples and mosques here, too evoked a temptation to dabble in Instagrammable musings, but I have held back, thinking, what if she doesn바카라t want to be anyone바카라s poetry?
(This appeared in the print edition as "Of Whoring and Waiting")
(Views expressed are personal)
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