Some Hope At Last

"Women might just have something to contribute to civilization other than their vaginas." Christopher Buckley, Florence of Arabia

In my last post I stopped when Meena decided to flee the brothel to save her life. She abandoned her chlidren and traveled by train for several hours to Forbesgunge. Unfortunately, someone told Ainul's son, Manooj of her whereabouts and he came to beat her up. He however didn't want her causing trouble in his brothel so he told her she could live on her own but she had to prostitute herself and give him the money. Meena agreed, because she didn't know how she'd survive otherwise.

Meena never gave him as much money as he'd like when he came to collect from her and so he beat her. One day when he was beating her furiously with a belt a respectable business man intervened. "You're already pimping her, you're already taking her lifeblood. Why beat her to death as well?"

This was a big deal for Meena. She was a woman scorned by society and he was a pharmacist (named Kuduz). It was startling to have anyone speak up for her. For a minute think about this happening here in the U.S. You're walking down the street and you see a man push a woman down on the street and he starts beating her with his belt. How many people would just walk by like it was okay? Who wouldn't say anything or at least call the police? We don't let things like this happen in our society. It's not okay but in India for women of lower class no one blinks an eye. Here it wouldn't matter who the woman was, black, white, asian, rich, poor, we'd say something. AND our police wouldn't look the other way. We have equal rights here. (Well at least more than undeveloped countries).

Manooj backs off and Kuduz helps Meena up. They end up building a great relationship and he offers to marry her. She is thrilled. Manooj however is not thrilled. He offers Kuduz 100,000 rupees ($2500) to give Meena up--a sum that perhaps reflected his concern that she might use her new respectability as a married woman to cause trouble for the brothel. Kuduz wasn't interested.

Meena and Kuduz marry and have two daughters and then Meena goes back to her native village to find her parents. Neighbors tell her that her mom cried constantly after she disappeared, then had gone mad and died--but her dad was stunned and thrilled to see his daughter resurrected.

Life was much better for Meena but she of course misses her first two children. She starts traveling back to her old brothel to stand outside and plead for Naina and Vivek. It didn't work. Ainul and Manooj didn't let Meena in the brothel; they whipped her and drove her away. The police were no help. They wouldn't even listen to her. The brothel owners not only threatened to kill her, they also threatened to kidnap her two daughters with Kuduz and sell them to the brothel. Once a couple gangsters showed up at Meena's house in Forbesgunge to steal the two little girls, but Kuduz grabbed a knife and warned: "If you even try to steal them, I'll cut you into pieces."

Meena was terrified for her girls but she couldn't forget her daughter Naina. She was approaching puberty  and would be on the market soon. What could she do?

To Be Continued........