Nilima is a forty year old woman who has lived in Kamathipura for most of her life. Her family is from Karnataka. Nilima works in a local NGO in Kamathipura. She has a young daughter. Her father was an abusive man and an alcoholic. He died when she was a child and he mother brought her up.
Nilima’s mother was offered to Yellamma Devi as a Devdasi. It is believed that the Goddess demands this. But Nilima did not believe in this practice. “Mujhe lagta hai ki, bhagwan kaise bolega ki, mere liye tum galat kaam karo, yeh toh log bhagwan ke name par apna kaam dekhte hain, kai gaon aise hain, ki wahan beti hui toh khush hote hain, devdasi banao aur Mumbai bhej do, phir inki kamai shuru ho jayegi.”
Nilima lived in a village with her grandparents. When she was about 8 years old, she came to Mumbai and began to live with her mother in the building where her mother worked. At first, her mother told her that she worked as a domestic worker, but later Nilima realised that she was doing sex work. She was not allowed to step out of her room as her mother considered it dangerous and feared that she would be harassed or attacked by the customers and pimps. Nilima feels she is lucky to have escaped the fate that befell her mother.
Many buildings have been taken over for small businesses. Rents are unaffordable these days. Many women now work on the streets.
Nilima made friends with a girl, Sudha, who had studied till class 10. Sudha’s mother too was a sex worker. Sudha got Nilima a decent job in a paper packing (patre ke dabbe) unit. Nilima also made strings and paper lights for Ganpati festival. She enjoyed this work as she considered it safe, and the factory owner was a decent man. It gave her a chance to stay away from the rooms where sex work happened. She began with Rs. 760 a month, and then by the time she left, she was making Rs. 3600 per month. She had worked there for several years. Then, in the early 2000s, NGOs started to operate on a large scale in the context of the AIDS epidemic. Nilima now works with an NGO. She takes care of her mother and is sending her own daughter to a local school.
She said that these days, sex work has become very difficult. Women who solicit on the streets are harassed daily by the police, and they demand hafta. If these women leave this job, what will they do, she asked. Many buildings have been taken over for small businesses. Rents are unaffordable these days. Many women now work on the streets.
“Pehle sadak par khare nahi hoti thi, ghar mein rehti thi, ab ghar hi nahi hai, toh sadak par khari hain. Ab Bangali bharein hue hain yahan, unmein auraton ko dhande pe bithate hain aura admi ghar par baithke khate hain. Dalal log kam hain. Pehle Nepali log bahut hote the, jo chote hcote bacchiyan laake dete the, ab yeh log nahi hain yahan”
