The Innocent Whore

Masoom, the name in itself was an irony to her now.

Standing on the road with a lustful smile and luring people towards her, she knew her innocence was lost somewhere long back. She had never expected to become what she is now.

Life has taken a different turn for her, towards a unidirectional road, which seems tiring and never-ending. But today standing at the end of the lane with the aching ankle in high heels revealing voluptuous body under the short dress she might not be able to hide her flesh, but her feelings were masked under the fat layers of makeup. She was an innocent and poor girl, from an unknown West Bengal village who came to Kolkata for work. Work that would support her family would feed her siblings and help her fulfill her ambition to be a writer.

Still standing at the end of the lane, her mind was drifting back to the words her mother told her a year back before she planned to come to Kolkata. 

" O maa go, eto dure ekta baccha mey eka, na baba na ami charbo na tomaye, amar Shona mey" Oh my god, I can't allow you my little child to go alone so far.

Those were the only kind words filled with love and authenticity that she heard since the last year. After coming to Kolkata, all she heard and faced was mockery, flattery, and fraud. The man who promised her to provide a maid's job and feed her desire for English education killed her hopes and desire when she was forced into the flesh trade, where she was raped multiple times by the same trusted man.

Her day to day life as a prostitute, as a "fresh product in the market", and her imponderable mistake was something she needed to speak to the world. Though she was a sharp student in her village, her English was not very excellent. With her broken grammar and a broken heart, she penned down her thoughts on a page while waiting for her prospective customers. As she completed her thoughts, a man held her hand, pulled her hard, and asked her rate. Rate is what now defines her, her identity, her innocence.

The page where she penned her emotions, fell from her hand in the hope to be found by someone who can understand her, thoughts, and the thoughts of many like her. The question that always lingered in her mind. The question about her sin, about her fate, the tangled knot of her mind, why she became the innocent whore, flew away rolling on the floor.

At the end of the street, I stand all day long,

Waiting for one, who would come along,

To hold my hand and take me afar.

Away from this land of mutinous war.

How long I stood, I have lost sense of time

But still, in my heart, I know someone mine,

Would come to me, to save my soul

Dipped in melancholy, yet playing the role.

My dreams and desires that seem a lie

Still, I search for hope, in every passerby

Who may guide me towards a new door

Where I don't stand as an innocent whore!