Tires, overs, cages

 On the second floor of a building across the street from the one that houses the temporary BTC clinic in Kamathipura stands an elegant young lady in a loose-fitting long black cotton nightgown with embroidered flowers.   She stands behind the bars of a cage.  Her wavy black hair falls to her waist.   Our eyes happen to catch when she looks down at the lane; hers is a look both beautiful and haunting; hints of determination and despair mingle.  My attention is temporarily taken from her by another group of people who enter the busy narrow lane in their brightly colored saris.  They gather in a circle talking to each other with their backs to me, saris draped perfectly, matching  blouses covered properly, long hair tied back in tight buns. Nothing is out of the traditional attire, and yet as I begin to look away, something forces me to look again - their faces, the ones I am able to see - are those of men.  And that day I learn that a section of  Kamathipura exists to serve this group also.I look back up to the second floor - she is still standing there.  Across from her - on the same side as the BTC clinic is a tire store; customers mull around; conversations take place - seemingly oblivious to the fact that above them and around them is the buying and selling of human beings, or maybe it has come to a point that the buying and selling of humans is nothing more or less than the buying and selling of bicycle and motorcycle tires. Farther down the narrow lane, a group of boys play cricket.  These boys yell, laugh,  bowl, bat, and catch with the same enthusiasm as they would if they were in a school yard or an open field; they are in neither; they are in one of the 14 crowded lanes of Asia's largest red light district.   They are playing on a filthy street between filthy buildings while their mothers "work."  Most of the boys will have to continue to play as long as their mothers "work."I look up again at the bars on the second floor.  She is gone.   Whether she went of her own accord or because her beauty caught the eye of one with enough rupees to press into the palms of her owner is unknown.  She will come back to stand again and again; and each time she comes, she will do so having been violated once again, despair increased, dignity diminished.   She will stand behind that cage convinced a little more that in this crowded lane she is very alone.   Her childhood dreams will rise only to mock her as she accepts this to be her destiny.   And unless someone dares to enter her hell, she will be right. Jooly Philip