Dance of disrepute
Shyam Bhatia

There may have been stray attempts to rehabilitate these dancing girls, but their lives and future remain mostly bleak

The girls on New Delhi’s G.B. Road who acquire dancing skills are able to double their income, as they are more sought after. Photo by the writer

Delhi’s past and future come together on a road that has been celebrated for more than 100 years as the heart of the red light zone.

Flanked on its northern axis by the Lahori Gate, and with Ajmeri Gate to its south, this is the controversial urban stretch of 150 m, where an estimated 3,500 to 4000 young girls eke out a living from the looked-down-upon profession of selling their bodies for a price.

None will admit to being less than 19 years old – the safe, official age for an adult — but in practice many seem to be no more than 13 or 14. The address on which they live is Swami Shraddhanand Marg, named after an Arya Samaj missionary, who was murdered in 1926.

Locals, including the girls, still refer to the road by its original colonial title, “G. B. Road”, an abbreviated form of Garstin Bastion. No one knows who Garstin was. Some believe he was an English general, who participated in the 1857 siege of Delhi. Others believe the name belongs to a 19th-century British civil servant who tried and failed to bring respectability to this part of Delhi.

By day, the road is crowded with shops selling spare parts, hardware and paint. Hence, the names like “Bikes”, “Super Compressors”, “Pumps” and “Mill Stores” that stare out from the hoardings.

But the real business of G. B. Road starts after the streetlights are switched on at night and the girls in search of customers emerge from behind their caged windows on the first and second floors of more than 100 brothels in 24 buildings. Polite society despises them, but these girls, dressed in bright pink, black and red saris, believe they are honourable members of that same society.

The local police, under the supervision of Inspector Surinder Jeet, has been working to help the dancing girls

They are characterised by a variety of names: sex workers, prostitutes and ‘dancing girls’, another word for the courtesans who represented the country’s rich culture of the bygone days, when a singing and dancing girl was also respected for her artistic qualities.

Not all dancing girls are necessarily prostitutes, but the two ways of life exist side by side in this part of Delhi and are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Those who acquire dancing skills, the mujra perfected at mehfils and kothas in the years gone by, are more sought after by customers, who literally shower them with bank notes.

Those who live on Delhi’s G. B. Road may never gain the halo of Anarkali’s immortality, but they, in their own way, continue to carry out their daily duties by sending to school their illegitimate schildren, performing domestic chores and getting up in the mornings to practise singing and dancing in the presence of a teacher for at least three hours a day. They have preserved with pride a 1981 certificate signed by India’s then Home Minister Zail Singh that “extends the time for singing and dancing” for the girls of G. B. Road.

“Why don’t you leave this way of life and find a different way of earning a living”, I asked 23-year-old Chhaya from the city of Pune, a divorced mother with a young son. She looks no more than 16, admits to giving birth at the age of 13 and lives in a brothel that houses girls of all religions.

Her Hindu friends are identified by the images of gods and goddesses displayed on the walls of their rooms. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, is a favourite, followed by fierce, demon fighting Durga and a host of lesser deities. The Muslim girls favour large, coloured prints of the grand mosque in Mecca. Chhaya explains that there is no other work that would give her as satisfactory an income. She earns Rs 1400 a day (approximately US $ 30). Half of her daily earnings go to the brothel owner. If she agreed to train as a mujra dancer, she could easily double her daily income.

Chhaya is not against the idea of remarrying, but the fate that stares them in their faces is that very few customers want them as wives. This is also the observation of local NGO workers, who wish more customers would be prepared to make them their legal wives. So far, only a handful of young men, who fell in love with the girls, have married them in the past two years.

As part of the efforts by a few voluntary organisations, about a dozen girls have been trained in sewing and embroidery and some have been married off

The number is barely a drop in the ocean, but that is because of the attitude of the elite, which only associates sex with the girls and not the hundreds of years of culture that they represent, including their role in sustaining the various gharanas of classical music dating back to the 16th century.

What hurts the girls most is not just the scant attention paid to their artistic qualities, but the neglect of a society that looks down upon them as pariahs. Custodians of so-called decent and civilised living have never thought how much these girls sacrifice to save women in upper class localities from the unwanted attention of desperate prowlers.

There have been limited attempts to help rehabilitate the girls. A few dozen have been trained in the art of sewing and embroidery. Four of them have been married to men of their choice. But for most of them, there is no future. If sufficient funds were to become available, more girls could be trained in various crafts and even sent to schools and colleges for further education.

A few voluntary organisations, very few, have started working in the area to make the girls more aware of the hazards of their profession. But there is no move to retrieve them, much less help them start afresh in life.

The local police, supervised by a woman inspector, Surinder Jeet, has worked over the years to help the girls when required. Jeet has personally rescued some 80 girls, who have been handed back to their parents. She has also given the community her mobile number  to contact when in trouble. But the girls feel the mobile is for emergency situations and not for helping them to opt out.

Where can they go on their own? Some of them make a virtue out of what they do because they feel they are not good enough for anything else. On GB Road, they are at least assured of making a living and sending their 600 children to school.

Notwithstanding the large numbers of these girls and the contempt in which they are held by society, there is little hope of their living as other ordinary citizens. Perhaps, what a pimp was recently cited as saying has about it a ring of truth: “A girl from here can go to the graveyard, but never to a decent married life.”

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