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Kamala Das

Let us invade the brothels and rescue the children!

Parents of young girls have become nervous wrecks, living in perpetual anxiety. They are not sure if the girls will return from school, unscathed.

Till recent times, we were not acquainted with crime. During feudal times I was a little child and could not connect the death of any poor girl of the locality with crime. The rich men threw them into wells when they became conspicuously pregnant.

Morality in those days meant the effective concealment of crime. But those pillars of society spared little girls.

Perhaps I was the only writer to write of a child prostitute. The editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India was an Irishman. If the editor's chair was occupied by an Indian, my story would not have been published. Years later the story that offended the sensibilities of the so-called virtuous was made into a film. The producer went bankrupt. He could not find a distributor for it. Smug society-women declared that their husbands would net let them see a film set in a bordello.

Child prostitution was not to be discussed. Seventy per cent of the inmates of Indian brothels are children below 15. It is still not time to discuss the problem.

It was brave of the People's Council for Social Justice, UNICEF and the National Women's Commission to organise a seminar in Cochin to discuss the problem of child prostitution. There were more men than women in the auditorium. Some years ago, I had been invited to a symposium in Delhi organised by UNICEF. I had handed over a video cassette of my film Rukmini to the chief who was a foreigner. Something has to be done quickly, I told him. But afterwards there was no response, no communication of any kind. No one seemed to care.

At last week's seminar there were papers read, speeches made all with appropriate passion and fury. But is the child prostitute going to benefit from this verbiage? Would it not be wiser to invade the brothels in a strong group and rescue the children from their humiliating bondage? Is it not wise to punish the rapists by making him impotent for life? Hormones will be effective for such transformation, if one is squeamish about using the knife.

The law of the land do not permit sexual assault, except when the man has his marriage certificate to prove his proprietorship. But very few people in India heed the dictates of law.

The tortured bride might scream aloud and cry out for help. But the neighbours will shut their windows and go to sleep. A marriage certificate permits a man to perpetrate perversions on his bride. There have been cases where the bride was found dead in the nuptial bed.

Until recent times children were not taught the facts of life. At the time of marriage, the bride-to-be is not told what kind of a contract she would be entering into. She is not told about the duties of a wife. How does society expect her to be an exemplary wife?

Feminists are a strident lot. They act as if they dislike men. In disliking men, they tend to lose the gentle bliss of being loved by a man. Even as a young wife, I wanted my man to be strong enough to protect me. Being protected physically and economically was a desirable state in my opinion. Perhaps such requirements vary with the hormone level found in each woman.

Dr Pisharody of Texas told me that a tablet named Melatonine had a hormone content rejuvenated the old and the decrepit. It was available only in the US. Every middle-aged male clamoured for it. I had met Dr Pisharody exactly a year ago in Houston. Last month he came to Cochin and seemed incredibly young. Reasons: Melatonine.

Dr Pisharody recently invented a small device that would revolutionise the surgery for slipped disc. It would fill the gap and cause a fusion with the bone, he said. He was to hold demonstrations and slide shows for the benefit of orthopaedic surgeons and neuros. But Indian doctors are a smug lot. The more ignorant you are, the more complacent you seem. This helps one to measure ignorance and fix its level.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier