Every night when the clock strikes 11 and the whole city returns to home from the buzzing traffic and gushing work load, she prepares her body with scented clothes and glittery rose to hit the roads. She wears the same skin and glares with the same eyes as yours, but they hold the ordeal of all summer, winter and rainy nights. You may find her outside your car window or strolling across the deserted roads under the moon light, with a whiff of heavy perfumed jasmines and dimly lit hopes, selling herself as a whore or moving around in masses and inviting you in, with clamours of her shiny bangles and the sweetness in her dead eyes.
Despite the glee in her face, and the shine in her hair, she still looks like she is in desperate need of some air, some fresh air and not the silent whispers of slut, whore and hooker from you, that drowns her pride and respect in the stinking gutters of the red light streets, she calls home; but she still smiles at you with her gritted teeth and smeared lipstick on her mouth.
Despite your constant thrusting of her identity into the darkness of her past, present and even darker future, with the only light being the flickering bulb of her one room mudsack, she again calls home, she still stands strong or I may say, naked in front of your lust filled bones.
Amidst the pleasure of those wild kisses and brash groping, she finds comfort in the image of her child sleeping. While her eyes and lips seems to be pursed, every part of her body and heart screams, an unheard “NOOOOOO!” with every garment being stripped from her soul.
When her lungs fill up with smoke from the cheap cigars of a small pan shop in the adjacent building and her hands burned off, of the cigar buds on the warm ashtray beside the bed, she clutches a little more tightly and roughly to his shirt.
When she gets whipped and whooped, slammed and bashed, in the process of ‘making love’ she laughs a little harder, a little longer. And when she is pressed and scraped instead of being touched and carassed, though her body bleads, it’s her soul that feels the pain and bears the scars.
How does she still hold the courage and strength, known only to the human, after the constant abuse and incessant stabbing of her senses by the society, the men, the women and even the demon? Shameless? Ofcourse, yes.
The battles she fights and the wars she wins are against the race of her own, and the sacrifices she makes, are for more than just few green notes. Her privileges crushed, her rights abused and her morality, wrapped under a thin layer of vulgarity and sold on the streets and served as fresh jokes and clean cuss words. Her presence in oblivion, her voice, muted and her thoughts, what are they even?
Why, I may ask. And you shall reply, Because remember, she is just a whore?
How does she survive you may ask, and I shall show you how she rises every morning, drapes her saree onto her naked body, fixes her hair and dusts away the petals of the flowers from the cot where the shaggy arms still lie stretched, like the clouds prepare the sky for the sun to arrive, after a heavy storm in the night and walks out like there is still hope in the stark tomorrow, and there is still love in the hopeless today.
But, who is she you may ask? A mother? A daughter? A woman? A human?
No, just a whore.
Erratic Whispers 