Daughters of the Red Light: Coming of Age in Mumbai's Brothels by Shanoor Seervai Read Free Book Online

Louis.
    Robin had harbored dreams of becoming a fighter pilot but ultimately decided the U.S. Air Force was no place for a woman of color. Certainly not one who decided to come out at a time when Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy that prevented gays from serving openly in the military, was enforced. When Robin’s commander found out she was a lesbian, he told her he would turn a blind eye. But Robin had had enough. She became a vocal campaigner against the ban, pushing forward rallies in Washington, D.C., raising money from wealthy donors, and stirring up a media storm. She got kicked out in 2010, just before the policy changed.
    Robin went to India to begin work on her next crusade.
    “Starting Kranti was a type of healing for myself. At first, it was just something I desperately wanted to do. I never had any support as a kid, and I wanted to give these girls support. I first started therapy at 25,” she says. “I am finally getting to a place where I don’t hate men. I can’t push these girls along their path, but I can help them get there earlier. I want to help the girls get out of a place of being angry all the time.”
    But the equilibrium Robin’s arrived at is precarious, and keeping Kranti afloat is a constant uphill battle. “There are disasters that make me question what I’ve been doing with myself for the last four years.”
    Nearly a year after my first visit, I learn Robin is being evicted. Her landlord has discovered she is running a nonprofit out of a residential apartment and asks her to clear out.
    I go to Kandivali to meet Robin’s neighbors. Many refuse to speak to me, and the few who let me in grow uneasy when I mention Kranti. As a reporter, however, I’ve grown accustomed to having doors slammed in my face.
    “We are family people. We don’t want neighbors like this,” one person says. The Kranti girls “do not represent our Indian culture,” I hear more than once.
    Downstairs, I find Robin lying on her back in the middle of the room, wearing black sweatpants and a faded T-shirt. Her hair is in a sloppy ponytail. She looks as if she just woke up. One of the home’s cats is also sprawled out on the floor.
    We settle in the study, a room crammed with books, a desk, and an old computer. “We’ve called over a hundred landlords, and no one wants to rent to three single women and ten girls,” Robin says. “Everyone has a ‘not in my backyard’ attitude. They all say Kranti does great work, but they don’t want us to do it here.”
    Robin always gets heated when she talks about Kranti — she is very protective of the girls — but today, there’s an indignation I haven’t heard before in her voice. The sudden imminence of having nowhere to go means there is a risk she could lose everything she has worked to build.
    The neighbors, who’d been blissfully unaware of Kranti’s work for its first two years, started causing trouble after Shweta’s story became widely known. Middle-class Mumbai’s aspirations clashed with the idea of a girl from the red-light district going to America, something still out of reach for most Indians. I try to play the unbiased reporter, but it’s hard not to sympathize with Robin.
    Many also say the girls dress in revealing clothes and talk to boys. Robin snorts when I ask her about this. Shorts are appropriate for the children of the aspirational class, but when girls from the red-light district dress the same way, they are upsetting the apple cart of socioeconomic expectations.
    The most disheartening part is that the wealthy and well-connected people she knows are sympathetic but none offer tangible help, “even though they could just make a few calls and find me a place,” Robin says.
    She’s on the phone with another potential landlord when I leave. Over the next few weeks, Robin and I have many phone and text conversations about her apartment hunt. The process is complicated by the fact that two of the girls are also applying for passports