Who Is Bad?

"Babuji, please give me 50 Rupees, please, I need to buy medicines for my mother. She is very sick," Bindiya was pleading to every passerby.

"Oh, you, fuck off. You are stinking badly. And don’t you dare touch me again; else I will suffer from all your diseases. GOD only knows who all touch you and your mother. HUH!"

The area where Bindiya was running after people was a Red light area. Her mother was seriously ill and needed immediate attention. Her mother also came from the same profession and was ailing with a number of diseases. When the little girl found no hope for getting some money for medicines, she returned back home. Her mother lay on the broken bed, coughing badly. Bindiya offered her some water and started cooking some food.

After her work, the ten-year-old Bindiya sat near the window and started reading the busy street.

 In between that hustle and bustle, she noticed that women, who were showing their skin through sari, were given money and taken away. She kept on observing, a woman shows her waist or displays her legs is offered money. No matter how old or young she was.

 She went running to her mother and asked about this. Her mother, forgetting every pain of hers, jumped out of bed and gave her a tight hug.

"Come here my baby and don’t look at them. They are not nice people."

"Who is not nice mother, the people offering money or the females offering themselves?"

Her mother was dumbstruck. This was an unanswered question since ages

What answer would she have given, when she herself was in this business. Yes, she was a prostitute and everyone who once fucked her had now left her to die.

She still remembered the day when out of ignorance and trauma of her husband’s sudden demise, she sat near the footpath, with little Bindiya sleeping on her lap. Suddenly a bike came, without even putting down the engine, the man offered her a good sum of money and held her hand.

She immediately pulled her hand back fearing some bad to happen. The man thinking, she was  not satisfied with the amount, offered just the double of it and now the bundle caught her eyes.

"Why are you giving this to me?" asked the ignorant mother.

"Come on; as if you don’t know anything. What do you suppose men do at this place? It is a red light area. Are you not sitting here to sell yourself? Are you here just by mistake? You must be kidding."

He laughed sarcastically.

Then she realized the fact that she was in the wrong place. But she needed money also for her daughter, so not thinking too much she accepted the offer. Since then she was into it but always tried to keep her daughter away from all this. She wanted Bindiya to get educated and turn into a respectable individual.

She was lost in all such thoughts when she realized that her daughter was again standing in the queue to offer herself. This time, the innocent girl tore her frock from waist and shoulder to show her innocent skin. A buyer was about to take Bindiya when her mother came running and rescued her.

She took her daughter back to their room, took some random medicine to satisfy her and acted being absolutely fine. Seeing her mother like that, Bindiya took a sigh of relief.

"Look baby, I am alright now. I don’t need any medicines and so you don’t have to worry about medicines and stand in that queue."

After this incidence, her mother decided that she won’t let any little girl get in this dirty business. She left that area, and nobody stopped her as she was a ‘Not for Use’ commodity now.

One step that her mother took to bring a change in the society against all these evils was commendable. She prepared a banner that read;

"If you are with me against the crime of child prostitution, come and leave an impression of your palm on the canvas and take a pledge that from now onwards whenever and wherever you find such crimes taking place, you won’t sit quietly."

Slowly people started coming and joined her. There were hundreds of palm impressions on the canvas and thousands of smiles.

She soon opened a ‘Home’ in a small room and  took care of all the young girls of that area while their mothers were busy in offering themselves and earning money.