The woman in a black sequenced sari stood on the kalighat bridge looking endlessly nowhere. Her thick back, curving , bulging and rippling from below her tight bra stlyed golden silk blouse, vanished underneath her drape held tight by a petticoat. Her posterior?? Many men's desire ,broad and rounded and must be severely pounded but still firm..
Her hair gave way her despair, hanging limply at her waist, mangly, brown and split ended adorned with a carelessly strung gajra hanging on one side.Big gaudy jumkas strained her ears. It was difficult to assess her age from behind. Nothing disturbed her. The sounds of the rushing cars, nor the nearby quarrelsome voices of other standing girls like her, who were vying with each other for the attention of the dismal looking passers by.
Now and then some men tapped her shoulder for attention but she ignored and they tried other preys .
Her name was Rani and she did dress like one. She was much respected amongst her lot and no one had ever seen her so desolate. Flower sellers came to sell flowers, men came and cracked lewd jokes with the other girls,, others came to bargain a fuck, some abused and went away, but today Rani didn't notice any of these. She had turned her back to the world that had taken away her world, her 15 yr old son and crushed him under the wheels of a speeding Mercedes, just as he was returning from school. She had worked servicing the men, she hated, for 18 long years so that she could send Babu to school. She had risen up the ranks, rented out beds and rooms,and still giving a fuck now and then to keep her Babu at bay. He had to go to college, he had to become a big man and once he went to college she would stop and go far away where no one would know her. In her own way she had lived life queen size.She was ready for simplicity now.She had saved meticulously for Babu to go away. He was a bright student and never ashamed of his mother. He had promised to take care of her like a queen . Whenever her back pounded and her front pumped and pumped she dreamt of the day when her Babu would be taking care of her like a queen.
She had performed her Babu' s last rites yesterday, stoically, tearlessly ,fearlessly and humbly. She had been surrounded by the other girls, who had all been some kind of a mother to Babu. They had been his Porima, Khushi ma, Liza ma, Bali ma and all.All had cried with grief except her. . Today as the other girls picked up their lives, she stood shrouded by her aloness, dressed in her black best because she didn't know what else to do.
(461 )
Rani, never spoke much anymore. She still rented out rooms in the dingy gullys of Kalighat red light busty. Some evenings she went to the NGO, that,
functioned as a creche for the children of the sex workers, where her Babu had spent much of his time first as a child, then helping out teaching the other children as he grew older. She tried to find him in every child, every corner ,every moment .Then desolately she would return to her room.
Then one day Rani packed her large black Aristocrat suitcase,the one she had bought for Babu to take to college, leaving a note for the NGO to distribute her remaining belongings amongst the girls, use her room as a dispensary , collect the rents and use the money for the welfare of the children some of who even called her Boroma. Kalighat never saw Rani again.
Rani travelled aimlessly, quietly and fearlessly from place to place. Sometimes in busses, sometimes in trains always lugging her big black aristocrat suitcase along. It contained her black best, a few clothes and some memories. Sometimes she stayed in small rooms sometimes on platforms. She lived anonymously, unnoticed. Now and then dressed in her black best she walked the streets . Her face paler, her body thinner,but her big broad posterior and her red spread lips still attracted the younger men. As the pounding and pumping would begin Rani writhed and wriggled, flaying and flapping her hands, beating and bouncing er body to that primeval rhythm . Every movement of the prick inside her was a whip on her body like a flagellant. Beating, bouncing, writhing, wriggling she released her pain, not her orgasm with a primal scream expressing a mother's anguish of loss. The men, battered and bruised but sheepishly and falsely proud of being able to have aroused , for the first time in their lives , such animal like pleasure . As for Rani, drained and exhausted from her exhumed pain, would lay lifeless on the bed,oblivion of her naked body , the spilling sperm, the closing door and the extra tip that those manless men left on her bed.
Unknowingly, Rani because of her reactions in bed had become popular among these pleasure seeking males. But no one saw Rani unless she wanted them to. She changed places and rooms continuously. Not out of anonimity but because of the restless, pain inside her.
All of a sudden Rani was all across news papers. "A Prostitute Pumped to Death"," Story of the prosecuted Prostitute" , "Horrific death of a Whore ", and what not. It seemed reporters were in an alliteration competition.
Then one day the news reached Kalight in the form of a news paper , brought by a client who had read it in a train.
The girls gathered in the NGO office to hear Didimoni read out the news."Man confesses to killing prostitute. Shocked and frightened by her animal like behaviour, her primal orgasmic scream , the man , ashamed of his dismal release and jealous of the prostitute 's robust orgasm gags her to death for making him feel small " The news ended with a brief description of who Rani might have been. Wherever she went she had been an enigma. Not much was known about her. Kalighat recognized her from the description of how she always dressed in her black best, and a grainy picture of her's from her Adhaar card, printed alongside the picture of the spineless, spermless , shameless scoundrel that the girls of Kalighat had begun calling the murderer.
Rani's unclaimed body had received a pauper's funeral, but Kalighat performed for her a belated Shraddha. The girls contributed . A puja was performed, the poor around were fed and the children , the Babus of Kalight received a story book each from the NGO. In each book, Digimoni had painstaking written , With love from Boroma. The dispensary, till date nameless was named Rani Dispensary. Thus, Rani continued to live in the gullys of Kalighat busty, her spirit fleeting here and there looking for her Babu.
