Bollywood dreams

ROHAN screamed. The sound was so harrowing that it seemed to pierce

Radhika’s heart.

She hadn’t been informed of a visit from her beloved son and knew that his

presence at the brothel could only signal one thing – that they were about to be

moved again. It was hardly surprising given her attempted escape with Jigmi.

Jigmi – she tried hard not to think of him.

Rohan was now two-and-a-half years old and was displaying the signs of a

severe attachment disorder. He had not been allowed to bond with his mother in

the crucial stages of early development and as a result he was now often angry or

withdrawn. The effects were hardly surprising considering he had been

wrenched from Radhika by the sex traffickers when he was just over a year old

and had been held captive in a series of horrific compounds while she was forced

to prostitute herself.

Along with the children of other prostitutes, a panic-stricken Rohan was often

left alone for hours on end and any signs of his distress were met with cold

indifference, at best, and violence, at worst.

Rohan’s suffering was the hardest cross for Radhika to bear. Brothel owners

could beat her within an inch of her life but they could never come close to

inflicting the kind of pain she felt knowing she was failing her tiny son. He had

already been trafficked to two brothels and Radhika’s contact with Rohan had

been limited to just 3 visits, each lasting 15 minutes at most, in the past 6

months.

Rohan’s cries intensified as he was dragged roughly along the corridor

towards his mother’s room in the Sonagachi brothel. Radhika quickly clambered

out of the bath in which she had been attempting to wash away the bloody

residue of her most recent beating, donning a loose white cotton kurta to cover her bruises, before going to find her son.

She immediately ran towards Rohan and gathered him up in her arms,

ignoring her own pain as she smothered his reddened, tear-stained face with

kisses. He didn’t react to her, but by now she was used to his detachment from

her. She could see Rohan was deeply distressed. Worse still, he was in terrible

and obvious pain.

‘I began trying to soothe Rohan by feeding him some biscuits and milk,’ she

recalls. ‘It was then that I noticed the terrible wound in his mouth. I shouted at

the woman who had accompanied him to the brothel and demanded to know

what had happened to my son. She didn’t even try to lie or cover up the truth.

She looked at me coldly and said: “He was crying too much so we burned his

mouth with a cigarette. It taught him a lesson.”’

For a moment, Radhika was utterly speechless, staring incredulously at the

monster in front of her. Then she let out a heart-wrenching scream, before

breaking down into uncontrollable sobs.

What kind of evil people would do such a thing? To hurt such a helpless little

boy in such a horrific way. And what kind of a mother was she to let such

terrible things happen to her child? No wonder Rohan seemed to treat her with

such coldness. Who could blame him? She had let him down. She couldn’t even

protect him properly. In that moment, she knew that she had to find some way of

getting them out of this situation as soon as she possibly could.

Radhika drew in several deep breaths, making an effort to pull herself

together. She had to stay calm for Rohan’s sake. He was living in a world of

chaos and the last thing he needed was his own mother adding to his distress.

Turning away from the woman, who was watching her distress with such

dispassion, Radhika went to her room. She found her spare black kurta and

soaked it in cold water, making a compress which she then attempted to lay

gently against Rohan’s mouth.

She tried not to let her own pain show in her face. She could see that Rohan’s

wound was raw and infected. He screamed as she laid the material against the

wound. His harrowing cries felt like daggers in Radhika’s heart.

‘I felt completely broken. Rohan just screamed and screamed until he

eventually sobbed himself to sleep.

‘I rock[ed] him back and forth on my knee when Maya Tamang stormed in[to

the room] and told me: “You are … worthless to me. Pack your bags you

traitor[ous] bitch and get ready to go to Delhi.”

‘Even if she had told me I was going to hell [at that point], I think I would

have felt better. Anywhere had to be better than the evil regime she ran in the

stinking slums of Kolkata.’

Tamang introduced Radhika to a woman who she claimed was her sister, but

Radhika didn’t catch her name. She was told that this woman was to be her

chaperone and would acccompany Radhika on the 1,305km (811 mile) train

journey from Kolkata to New Delhi, her next destination.

At this point, as Radhika tried to cope with her screaming son, she wasn’t quite

sure if it mattered where they ended up.