by Vish Dhamija
Margaret: 'Around here. We act as three girls on a vacation to Bombay. We'll find a cheap room nearby.'
Viviane: 'I'll sleep in your room.'
Margaret: 'We'll all sleep in the same room, don't worry.' Mollification.
Repose.
06:13 p.m.: Even the phantom of Mr Patel was disassembling. Hopes had started to dissipate. With each passing minute, the probability of Mr Patel arriving to pick them up diminished. They had passed the entire day hanging around Gateway of India, so he couldn't have missed them if he came. Three young girls waiting would be conspicuous enough. They wished they weren't blazing enough for other men who might have been watching them.
Daylight was a guest now. It would soon be gone.
06:58 p.m.: Margaret was the first to notice two men watching them. They had been there for, at least, the past ten minutes. She couldn't hear anything although she could comprehend that the guys were talking about the three of them. She, however, decided against mentioning it to Deborah and Viviane and raising unnecessary hopes. Besides, who knew who they were? What if they were cops looking for three girls who had absconded from New Delhi this morning? Should she alarm her friends? Be prepared to run? But she waited. The two men conversed for the last time and walked towards them. They must have been ten feet away before Deborah and Viviane noticed them.
'Are you waiting for Mr Patel?' asked the guy in a blue shirt. Unshaven for a few days, the guy was well over six feet, built like a bouncer and reeked of cheap tobacco. He must have been thirty-five, black gelled hair, combed back.
'Yes.' Deborah was excited.
'I am Ramesh Patel,' the other guy in check shirt responded. He was older than blue- shirt, but shorter and thinner. He took out his wallet and showed the girls their pictures. 'I got these pictures from Moscow,' he spoke in perfect English.
'Why didn't you come earlier?'
'Had an urgent task to finish. Let's go.' The nightmare had ended.
Or so it seemed. 'Come on now.'
Check-shirt walked in front and blue shirt walked behind the girls.
Patel poked around in his trouser pocket, pulled out a cigarette and lit up without stopping. The girls, having met Mr Patel the saviour and their immediate worries over, blithely walked behind him. Dusk had set in, the sun had retired, but as they crossed Colaba, the girls noticed the dressed-up women accosting at street corners, and men stopping to negotiate. Two things never stopped in Bombay; in local parlance they were called khudai and chudai: digging and fucking. The streets were dug up for repairs, laying cables, and the hookers peddled ass at every corner from Colaba to Juhu. No weekends. The difference between Moscow and Bombay was stark enough to be discernible to the teenagers. Strangely, the buildings were beautiful, but not maintained. Theatres and pubs got their attention too.
Now, they were within touching distance of a new, rich, free, happy life. Inadvertently, the three looked at each other and smiled: within touching distance of a dream life, their countenances screamed. Exhaustion and fear were left behind at Gateway of India. If all went to the plan, 24 hours later they would be in London.
They walked to the car park nearby, threw their little bags into the boot of a battered, pale white unrecognisable make of a car and got in. The girls in the rear, check-shirt drove and Mr Patel sat in front.
‘How long is the drive?’ whispered Deborah.
‘Shh… girl, you’re so impatient. We’ve just started. Remember he's got to take us to a safe place,' Viviane explained.
The car turned left from Madam Cama Road into Cuffe Parade Road and the sky-rises started to show. Cuffe Parade was a posh residential address. Land reclaimed from the sea and turned into offices and luxury living for the rich. It had all the hustle-bustle of a lively place, though none of the grandness they had witnessed near the Taj Hotel. Mr Patel glanced back at the girls. The car stopped at the gates of — what appeared to be — an enormous sky-rise residential complex. New and swish. Check-shirt mumbled something, in Hindi, to the building watchman, who raised the barrier for the car to go through. Out of the car, into the foyer, Mr Patel ushered the three girls into the elevator. Check-shirt followed.
'Come,' Mr Patel gestured to the girls who obediently walked into the landing behind him. The security guard — or the doorman or whoever he was — gave a meek smile to Mr Patel, as if he wasn't sure whether he should smile or not. The 21st floor was more ostentatious than what the exterior of the building had promised. There were four apartments on this floor, which seemed to belong to the same owner. Or, perhaps, all the four owners were equally flamboyant. The place stank of stale tobacco and cheap alcohol, and it was only 7:30.
Someone had been informed about their arrival and the door, to the corner apartment, was mechanically unlatched.
The anteroom was even more la-de-la. Nothing was subtle or refined. Every penny spent on the room was garish and loud. The scarlet carpet was thick enough to silence steps taken in any kind of shoes. The shimmering on the luxurious carpet resembled Scotchguard; the visitors to this house, it seemed, certainly weren’t desirous of leaving any prints behind. The crimson curtains drawn, as if to cut out any daylight from the windows, contrasted with glossy ivory walls. Despite the room being lit with numerous lights, it was designed to be dim. Sparsely furnished with a large tan leather sofa, a few chairs, a coffee — or alcohol — table that had a few opened bottles and glasses scattered around. There were four people in the hall: three men and a woman, all of them blowing smoke from lit cigarettes in their hands. The two ashtrays on the coffee table were overflowing with stubs, which explained the stench of stale tobacco.
'Is this where we'll stay?' asked Deborah, who was standing behind the other two, her tone revealing her displeasure.
'You expected to go to the Taj?' Patel retorted sarcastically.
'Welcome, m’dear girls.' The lady in the room got up from the sofa. She must have been in her early forties. A large woman, she wore a black sleeveless gown-like dress that ended slightly above her ankles, patent leather open-toe high-heeled shoes and enough make- up to challenge a panther chameleon. She came closer and hugged the three girls, one by one, in her huge arms. ‘'Tis so nice to see ya.’
Margaret smiled back. She could sense that the environment daunted her two friends, thus it was important she stayed calm.
‘How was the journey?’
‘Good. We are very tired Miss—’ ‘I am Hina.’
'I’m Margaret. And this is Deborah, and Viviane,' she introduced the other two. 'How pretty!'
'As I mentioned, we are really exhausted, so if you could show us our room, we could chat in the morning.'
The six pairs of eyes, in the room, scoured the girls from top to bottom, taking their time to lecherously pause at their breasts, their bodies. They looked at each other; their eyes exchanged some unspoken conversation amongst them before an infectious grin travelled from one to another.
The girls couldn't comprehend why.
'Take them to the room and ask them to get ready for the evening,’ barked the biggest man in the room and took a large sip from his glass. Pathak, dressed in jeans and black T- shirt, seemed to be the top gun of this shebang. Mr lamb-chop sideburns wore a sleeveless T, his elephant-trunk sized bare arms tattooed from wrists till shoulders. He appeared to be drunk, already, and in a surly mood. Before the girls could grasp anything, he turned to them and roared again. ‘Passports?’ he stretched his hand.
Vishnu Pathak — not his real name surely, but it was so long ago that he had himself forgotten what he was originally christened as — was in his mid-forties. Exactly 45 the weekend just gone by. He had been in the business of luring young girls from all over India - it didn't really matter where they came from, and some had come from Nepal too — into prostitution, pushed into the oldest profession by circumstances or trickery or both. His resume, in the last two decades, could claim over two hundred girls — some even under-aged - bought from panderers and peddled into his club to be expl
oited. Sex was his business. If a few self-righteous people found him a heretic, it was their problem; lots, who mattered and who paid, loved him. There was a need for hookers, and if he didn't do it, someone else would peddle ass to the recession-proof market of tricks who sought these pleasures. He had one of the most elite clientele in Bombay — rich men, old men, young men, even some B or C grade celebrities who could afford a ten grand a night or a couple of grand for a “shot” as they called it. And his biggest talent was discretion. These three fresh girls — young half-wits — would be worth lots more. Young flock always had many takers, nubile ones got even more cash. But what transcended that was their skin colour. Pale colour outsold everything. And, these were not just any other Indian fair-skinned girls, they were the first White girls in his club, and the tricks would love to shag them. If it hadn't been for the money, he'd have shagged them himself this very moment, but the dirty greybeards would part with a lot more for virgins, he recognised. He could always shaft them later.
‘’Tis required for identification purpose; we’ll return it today itself,’ Hina explained. The other two men, Nripesh and Om, though giants in size, sat and watched the girls meekly.
The flibbertigibbet teenagers tamely dug into their bags and handed over the passports to Pathak. Hina exchanged a fleeting look with him and wrapping her arms around Margaret, Deborah and Viviane took them into the flat.
Like a hotel, the anteroom opened into a long, carpeted corridor that connected all the four apartments on the floor. They passed a few rooms, but all of them were shut. The rest of the flat was equally tawdry. The hallway had two recessed spotlights dimmed for muted lighting. Apart from the two recessed spotlights dimmed to darken the place, there was no other light. The girls, questioning themselves if they grew mushrooms here, held hands and followed Hina, who escorted them to the end of the corridor and pushed open a door on the left.
‘Come in.’
The room was no less pretentious than the anteroom and hallway. Small but ostentatious, the fifteen by fifteen room had a double bed in one corner, which had been made up for guests, with two pillows and a few cushions carelessly scattered on it. The stench of stale tobacco, it seemed, permeated throughout the flat. The little window, covered by thick red curtains that matched the ones in the reception hall, was shut to prevent the disgusting odour from escaping. A little cupboard — or makeshift wardrobe, with a shiny veneer, was kept near the window. On the opposite side of the bed there was a dressing table; a door was ajar to an inadequately lit room, which, by the hum of the little exhaust inside, gave away its identity. The door was the only cavity on this wall opposite to the bed, which, otherwise, had floor to ceiling mirrors.
Jesus. Were they supposed to stay in this? ‘Could we see other rooms?’ Margaret asked. ‘Why?’
‘This seems to be reeking…’ Margaret twitched her nose and glanced at the younger two, who nodded in acquiescence.
‘Oh, Cinderella wants ‘nother room?’ The tone was part derisive, part acerbic. ‘Well, if you don’t have three clean rooms, we’re okay to share.’
There was a short shrift from Hina.
‘Excuse me. Could we speak to the manager please?’
‘I’m the manager. ‘Tis the only room available for tonight. Okay?’
The girls looked at each other. Viviane, still holding Margaret’s hand, pressed her fingers hard to convey her acceptance.
‘We’ll share it. But, could we have a better one if one’s available later?’ Another short shrift.
‘Have your menses started?' Hina abruptly inquired looking at the three. 'Yes. But why do you ask?'
The old boiler carried on regardless. 'Is any of you on now?
The girls might have learnt English and learnt a bit of Indian and Irish accents to get past in Delhi, and the Immigration at Heathrow, but they weren’t taught this ugly patois. The three exchanged a fleeting look.
‘Is any one of you on the rag now?’
Intimate questions as these had no reason to pop up; all the girls required was a place for a nightcap. And they had paid for it. Hina’s expression had metamorphosed, from the smiling lady they had first seen in the anteroom, to an intolerant prison wardress.
No.
No.
No.
'You lost you cherry yet?' Hina looked at Viviane. ‘No.’
'You?'
Deborah shook her head.
'And you, troupe leader?' She turned to Margaret. 'Listen Hina, I think...'
Finding Margaret’s tone a bit assertive, Hina, without a warning, swung her right arm and placed a tight slap across the girl’s face. Before the other two could grasp what happened, Hina held Margaret's hair in the fist, yanked them and placed another slap, with the left hand, this time, on the other cheek. 'Don't ya fuckin’ tell me what ya fuckin’ think, you brainless bitch,' she yelled, loosening her grip and pushing Margaret to the floor.
The sudden furore resulted in consternation — Viviane fell down and passed out; Deborah broke down into tears and let out shrill cries. The blaring voice, the boisterous noise prompted other doors in the corridor to open, to check, but were quickly shut back as the other busy — or frightened — residents saw Pathak rushing down towards the end of the passage followed by his flotilla of four.
‘What the hell is going on here?’
‘This fuckin’ bitch needs a lesson, she needs to be shown her place. Why don’t you guys give her some? It’ll help taming the other two too.’ Hina walked away from the centre of the scene and slammed the door shut.
The men looked at Pathak for consent, and he nodded without wasting a minute. The four stooges instantaneously collected Margaret from the floor, threw her on the bed as Pathak stubbed the cigarette in the empty ashtray nearby. Then, he, in presence of the men, Hina and the two striplings, moved towards Margaret, grasped her poncho and violently tore off the front.
The time for being bold, for her friends, had ended. ‘No, please no,’ Margaret screamed and struggled to get past him.
The fingerprints of the two slaps rendered by Pathak were to remain on Margaret's cheeks for the next two days. He grabbed her trousers and pulled them down as though they were several sizes too large; the bra and cotton panties followed. Unashamedly, he unzipped his jeans and took out his phallus. As if on cue, Patel walked to the side of the bed and held Margaret’s legs apart. If Pathak hadn’t put his big hand over Margaret’s mouth, the scream, when he shoved himself into her, would have, indeed, woken up a corpse.
Deborah and Viviane, tears in eyes but silent with trepidation, watched the monster tear their friend.
Margaret was befuddled to the point of unbelieving; unbelieving all this was happening. Happening to her? It was definitely a nightmare, it will soon get over she kept telling herself, pinching herself, pressing her lips hard to endure the pain. Why, then, wasn’t she waking up? She didn’t want this dour nightmare to carry on. Little did she apprehend that this horrendous ordeal wasn’t getting over. Not anytime soon. Not ever.
Five minutes later, Pathak withdrew. ‘She’s shit hot, guys. Take her.’ Patel got on top of her and after him Om, Nripesh and check-shirt.
Even scavenging pimps had a pecking order. Pathak mounted Margaret again.
‘You will be a free fuck for every visitor tonight. If you do anything stupid, you will live to regret it,’ he dared Margaret, then looked at the other two. ‘And you two — watch her getting fucked.’ He zipped up and turned to Hina, ’Give these commies a razor to shave their fucking twats. I don’t want spider's legs straying out of their underwear. And get them some scanties too.’ He walked out with his flunkies.
'Did you follow what Pathak bhai said?’ The three girls nodded in acquiescence.
And from now on, call me madam.' Hina smiled before they heard the door slam and locked from the outside. She was gone too.
Five cash-rich, disgusting, foul-smelling, rutting men came into the room through the night. Deborah and Viviane witnessed hirsute a
rses plunging into their unfortunate, compliant friend, the men squeezing her breasts, pinning her down. All tricks, in their drunken state, twaddled something unintelligible when they found the other girls watching them shag Margaret.
Did they want to shag the other two? Would they come for them later? Were they next? Even the inexplicable, inaudible questions in men’s expressions frightened them. Fear sired angst, but it was impotent anger, the one that could only frustrate.
Margaret was broken by the morning. She had no words, no tears left. When she tried getting up, it was an insurmountable chore to drag her bruised, lifeless body. The other two were woeful by the wretched experience they had gained second-hand. An incessant bad dream. They had to wake up. Had to get away. Somehow. Alas, it was the first of many surreal nights, the first of every night for the rest of their lives.
SEVEN
2007
Sheesh Mahal, a 1950s construction in which Rita resided, was on St Andrews Road in Bandra. To offset the ascent of the posh Pali Hill, uneven pillars, that made it appear like a crouching dog, supported it. The exterior appeared derelict, like many other antiquated buildings in Mumbai that had endured the taxing weather and the unforgiving tropical monsoons for over half a century. The interiors of most of the apartments, however, were totally in disagreement with the façade. The paan-wallahs and chai stalls in the neighbourhood notwithstanding, it was one of the most desired, most affluent suburbs of Mumbai. Some of the occupants had hired interior designers to do up their apartments. Rita had bought a fourth floor 2BHK apartment — a Two-Bedroom-Hall-Kitchen (irrespective of the minuscule living space it offered, it was referred to as a “Hall” by Mumbai estate agents) — almost five years back; she had had to relinquish two of her ancestral properties in Goa in lieu. Unlike some, she had self-decorated the place in minimalist fashion. Plain and sparse. The only striking feature being that she had got one of the longer walls of the rectangular living room, the Hall, painted in sea blue, which made it stand out from the other three walls that were in ivory. She had been in this apartment for a few months and had started feeling at home in Mumbai. It was a comfortable place. She kept most of the hall seating on the floor with lots of cushions thrown around to give it a cosy look.