Radhika’s new ‘home’ immediately conjured up for her an image of a prison

within a slum and made the former brothel in Silchar, Assam look like a palace.

Radhika says: ‘I went directly to the fourth floor and met the female gharwali

or brothel owner. Maya Tamang was a fat, fair-skinned woman in her late 30s.

She was dressed in an expensive yellow and green sari. I scanned her face for

any sign of emotion but there was none. Her vacant look terrified me because I

instinctively knew it meant she had become indifferent to the evils I was about to

endure. I had seen this look before. At that point, Raju prepared to leave. He

looked me in the eye and gestured towards Tamang, simply saying: “She will

teach you everything you need to know”, before turning on his heels and

disappearing into the chaotic street scene outside.

‘Tamang greeted me briefly and asked me to confirm my name before

immediately summoning another woman into the room. She was middle-aged

and fat with long black hair and she had a large mole on her cheek. Her slanted

eyes suggested to me that she was from the Himalaya region of Nepal. It depressed me to meet yet another of my country’s “sisters” who had turned

against her own people. I knew immediately by the way they both looked at

Rohan, what her role was going to be.’

Radhika was learning fast. As in the previous brothel, Rohan’s presence was

considered a distraction from dhanda. The modus operandi of the slum brothel

owners was to remove any children from their workers. This not only enabled

the girls to function more efficiently, but also gave the Madames something to

hold over the girls.

This time Radhika watched as her son was taken away from her for the second

time in his life. She couldn’t speak or move, so heart-wrenching was it to watch

him go. He didn’t put up a fight. There was no sobbing or screaming like the

first time they had parted. He just followed his new ‘surrogate mother’ silently

out of the room with his head bowed. He had developed an unhealthy trust in

strangers and it broke Radhika’s heart to witness it. As he disappeared from

view, she felt the blood rushing to her head and a loud ringing noise in her ears.

Her legs gave way beneath her and she collapsed on the floor.

A sharp tug on her wrist jolted Radhika back to harsh reality. She barely had

time to wipe the tears and mucus from her face before Maya Tamang, the

Sonagachi brothel owner, was barking orders into her face.

In a low, masculine-sounding voice, she began to familiarize her latest slave

with the house rules. ‘Listen carefully. At 8 a.m., you will be ready for work.

You will stand outside and lure the customers in. Take lunch briefly at 1 p.m.,

tea at 3 p.m. and dinner at 8 p.m. You will have meat every three days and rice

and dhal in between. You must aim to entertain up to 30 clients per day and

charge them 200 INR each (£2.89). All tips must be handed to me. Now follow

me to your room. HURRY!”

Maya Tamang led Radhika to a small room comprising four cubicles, each

separated by a set of filthy black and white curtains. At least there was the

luxury of a window at one end of this rectangular shaped cell, but the stench of

sex and sweat overpowered Radhika and for a moment she felt faint again.

Next, Radhika was introduced to her new roommates. She estimated that the

three pretty Nepalese girls were aged between 14 and 18 years old, like Radhika.

She found them frightening – a sign of what might happen to her if she let it –

their blank expressions and sullen eyes suggested that their spirits had already

been broken by the horrors that they had been forced to bear. She was

determined that would not happen to her, that she would always fight, for Rohan’s sake, if not her own. Radhika was to learn that each of the girls’ stories

were painfully similar to her own. They had been innocent village girls, like

heself, but were lured into the sex trade by the promise of a good job and a better

life.

Occasionally they spoke of escaping but Radhika knew that it was just an

impossible dream: they were situated on the fourth floor of the building about

25m (82ft) off the ground. And besides, there were security guards crawling all

over the brothel. There was also the Madame. Radhika was to learn that this

particular women had a sadistic love of violence.

At random times during the day, the girls would brace themselves for a

beating the moment they heard her plastic flip-flops squeaking down the

corridor. Tamang took great pleasure in punishing the girls for what she saw as

minor infringements of the house rules. Those who disobeyed the slightest

decree would find themselves crushed under the blow of her favourite weapon –

a heavy iron pipe that was wielded expertly even in her flabby arms.

Radhika endured many such beatings for failing to meet her 30-a-day client

target. And she still bears the scars of cigarette burns inflicted on her by Tamang

for the slightest disagreement. More shockingly, Tamang once poured boiling

hot water down Radhika’s back after she dared to answer her back on one

occasion. The subject of the argument was so futile, Radhika still can’t recall it.

All of this meant that the consequences of the discovery of a plot to escape or

an unsuccessful escape simply didn’t bear thinking about. And then there was

Rohan. Rohan. About whose whereabouts she had absolutely no idea.