Have you ever been friendlier with night life of Pokhara ? Colorful lights, crowded bars, dance clubs, teenagers making out,tourists whispering on foreign languages and other happier faces chilling out around Basundhara park. After the dawn falls out, Lakeside feels like a different world and the calm Fewa flows inside to witness it all.
Though it’s been six years since then, I still clearly remember how she approached me by the lake that night. It was a new year eve with loads of festive vibes around. I’ve never been much of a celebrating guy but nights at those streets of Damside always filled me with peace. And that night was also more or less normal until someone knocked my back. I turned around to find a beautiful girl of around 20 standing behind me.
Dark straight hair, dark complexion, red lipstick coated thin lips, finely threaded eyebrows and her eyes; so beautiful and deep, reflecting all the love of Fewa and colors of lights and happiness within. I was so lost in her beauty before I realized micro movements of her lotus like lips trying to say something. With a bit of fear in eyes and a weird smile, she asked
“ Wanna spend the night ? I won’t charge much.”
I wondered how a girl of this beauty be a prostitute ! She was still murmuring something but I didn’t care to listen; I was all lost in her eyes and silent. She took my silence and stare as Yes, then gently grabbed my fingers. Her soft touch was so gentle yet I was like electrified and couldn’t utter a word. We walked through the pavements by Fewa to reach her hotel. The woman at hotel reception gave us an unwilling welcome mixed with her cold look. She wrote something in a register and we were on her room.
For moments, I was surprised with myself about what I was doing in a cheap hotel room with a prostitute. Her room was like 8*8 Carlsberg beer cartoon box. Enamel painted ply board walls on three sides of room and a small lake facing window attached on single concrete wall. Posters and graffiti of some cheap actors and bollywood heroines were all around walls. Torn carpet, normal bed enough for only a single person to sleep, a second hand refrigerator and a 14” TV. Nothing more and cozy she could afford of. By the time I could think much she came inside and sat beside me. She had managed to put on more make up, her lips were more red and brighter than earlier. Besides, only a pink nighty on her body was the distance between her nakedness and me.
No matter how much I got swayed away with her beauty and innocence, I would never let myself to spoil such beauty with money, at least not that night and not on my hands. I knew she obviously deserved far better than this creepy life; forced to sleep with a strange man every next nightfall she meets.
Not a single word I had spoken till then but unknowingly I asked,
“Why are you a Prostitute ?”
Not long before I could realize what I had said, she responded with a dry smile. Her small lips stretched a bit and normal again. My desperation to know about reasons why she had been into prostitution business was about to sprawl out. Fortunately she was ready to talk.
Moment of awkwardness, and she commenced her story.
Six years earlier from then, she was sold to a brothel near Baglung Buspark by her own mother. She never knew who her father was and the last time she saw her mother was then, when the hotel owner was handing over cash to her mother as the price to pay for her virgin and unbled vagina. For about two and a half years, she was jailed inside that hotel. At daylight she would work in kitchen, serve people, clean dishes and as soon as the dawn hit, raped by a new stranger every night. Bus drivers, conductors, factory workers would be her clients normally. No matter how severe her condition would turn, the hotel woman made her sleep with customers every night without paying her a single dime.
She continued, there were nights when her body would burn like hell of fever, but despite of medicine she had to put on a femidom and was forced to make the customer happy and satisfied. She wasn’t the only girl with same fate within the walls of that hotel. She had witnessed her friends being murdered in cold hands for attempting to escape. Her misfortune, that even if she had managed to escape the hotel walls, those demons would find her, slaughter her and feed her pieces to hounds somewhere. She chocked on her own breath when she remembered those numerous nights of attempting suicide. But humans we are, no matter how miserable the situation is we try to give a fight back, at least. She tried but could never take her life on her own.
After three years as a sex slave, there came a day :
April 25th, 2015
The day that shattered entire country into pieces with multiple mighty blows of earthquake. For us that could be the most gloomy and frightening day we had ever lived on, but for her April 25th bought a new freedom. Even gods were done of her miseries that nature herself brought down those walls and chains of her feet. She couldn’t imagine how happy she was to witness her prison being demolished to ground. With every part of that building fell, she grew stronger, she walked free.
For days, she sheltered in a relief camp. When supplies to the camp were cut off, she was on her own. She had ran out of ideas about what she would do with her life again. All her life, at least the life she remembered, she had been inside a hotel room satisfying men with their sexual desires. However she didn’t break again, and started seeking out jobs she could do. Factories, shopping malls, houses wherever she worked, she failed. The experience and knowledge she had about could make no difference in real world outside.
A year later, tired of running for and from life again, she was standing by the edge of Fewa. As she was about to dive in and be free of life and miseries around, her eyes struck upon a man. Alone but seemingly happy that man was, about 5 foot 8 inches tall, fair guy with both of his hands inside his long overcoat, enjoying the reflections of fireworks in Fewa and New year in his own way. Apart from crowd, dance and music his peculiar way of celebrating life reinvigorated her soul with new energy again. She changed her mind, walked up to the man and knocked his back, as he turned around she asked,
“Wanna spend the night ? I won’t charge much.”
My eyes were all wet. With tears rolling down through both of my cheeks, I hugged her. I could feel her tears on my shoulders too as she came near to my ears and whispered,
“Thank you”
By the time she was finished sharing her story, tiny rays of sun entered through window. A new hope had entered the room and vibes on her life. She stood up, took a long breath and walked out of room. I was there; stark, gazing out of window, till she disappeared of my sights