Title: Nobody Can Love You More
Author: Mayank Austen Soofi
Publisher: Penguin Viking (Penguin India)
Pages: 240
Price: Rs 399
Genre: Non Fiction / Society / Anthropology
Rating: 10/10
Format: Hardbound
‘Nobody Can Love You More’ by Mayank
Austen Soofi is an attempt to bring out the ordinariness in the extraordinary
lives of the women of GB Road, the notorious red light area of Delhi. The
author is gently probing, deeply observant and extremely patient in following
the lives of sex workers of kotha (brothel) number teen sau (300)
for three years. The best thing about this book is that though it keenly
observes, it never judges; neither does it seeks pity for those women. It never
interferes in your own inferences as a reader.
The author started going to GB Road
to teach English to Sabir Bhai’s (a brothel owner) children. The children lost
interest in English after a couple of months but Soofi found himself “fascinated
by the ordinary aspects of the lives of people who, I think, have been
shepherded by circumstances into living extraordinary lives.”
Kotha (brothel)
number teen sau houses the malik, Sabir Bhai and
five women – Sushma, Fatima, Phalak, Nighat and Sumaira (and Mamta and Roopa
for some time). Soofi finds it easy to talk to the elderly Sushma who talks
about her experiences, her distant past and her dreaded future, her ‘working
hours’; and even cooks for him.
In the stories of these women, are
the reflections of several others who are cooped up in the dingy brothels (80
of them) in 42 buildings of GB Road. There are chapters on the lives of sex
workers, their children, the brothel owners, pimps, people connected to the sex
workers or GB Road like shopkeepers below their brothels, priests and
caretakers of a temple and a Sufi shrine, people who knew about the evolution of
these brothels over the years, and so on. Each chapter starts with a black and
white picture that sums it up.
Although the author is repulsed by
the idea of eating food, drinking water or sharing meals there, because of the
filth and lack of hygiene; yet he understands that he cannot expect them to
open their hearts to him if he does not even agrees to share food. He admits
that sometimes it was suffocating and depressing to be part of lives of those
people; his own life was in complete contrast to their’s.
The lives of sex workers are
surprisingly ordinary. They cook, pray, raise children, fight among themselves,
earn money and have ‘working’ hours. They do not behave differently anywhere
except at the place of their trade and during their ‘business hours’. They are
modest in places of worship, and like any other customer when in a shop.
It is interesting to find out about
the evolution of kothas over the
years. Earlier rich and royalty used to be their patrons. The nautch girls were
associated with courtesy, etiquettes and sophistication. Things took a dramatic
turn after independence, and more importantly after Emergency. Over the years,
the condition of kothas deteriorated.
Now the red-light districts are full of dingy, dirty, tiny cells where women
sleep with strangers for a measly sum of Rs 100-200 and a constant fear of
losing youth. Their mannerisms are crude and in-your-face.
What stood out for me was how their
daily routines were effortlessly entangled with the conversations with Soofi.
On one hand Sushma talks about her past, while she cooks dal for him and also
wonders how he can have just boiled dal. Also, in the scene where Soofi is
conversing with Roopa and Nighat, they behave like any other ‘shopkeeper’. When
they get customers, they go with them, return in a couple of minutes, take the
money, ask the customers to come back again, and join back the conversation
with Soofi – all with matter-of-factness.
It is also ironical how this section
of society generates intense curiosity and yet behaved as if they do not exist.
For example, the shopkeepers below these brothels say pointedly that they have
nothing to do with those women; they never talk or wish each other on any
occasion. Also, as Hasan Khurshid, the ‘legal’ journalist points out that they
were told to never look up while crossing GB Road because it brought shame to
be found looking at those women.
The cover page is impressive; and it
suitably teases you with the hints of what lay inside the book. The image of
cheap cosmetics and ornaments with the blurred image of a woman on the cover
page, and a green locked door with jasmine gajra on the handle reeks of a brothel.
Nobody Can Love You More is a
remarkable work of non fiction that handles a sensitive subject delicately,
while at the same time offers an intimate commentary about the lives of women
of kotha number teen sau and their surroundings.
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