Brothels and Bollywood

So much good and so much bad has happened today that I really don’t know what I’m feeling at the end of it all. It’s truly been an intense rollercoaster of emotions.

Let me start with the good: I checked into the YWCA and I couldn’t be happier. While the $24 per night expense is a lot comparatively for what I’ve been paying, it includes breakfast, dinner, air conditioning, a western toilet, a standing shower (no buckets!) and most of all… no bugs! I feel like I’m staying at a 5-star hotel for 2 days, and it’s awesome.

In other big news, I was asked to be an extra in a Bollywood film with the biggest star in Bollywoood!!! So exciting. I would have thought it was a scam, but just this morning I was reading in my Lonely Planet guidebook that Westerners are often stopped and asked to be extras for Bollywood. They offered to dress me in a costume, do my hair and makeup, feed me all day and pay me! But unfortunately I have a meeting with a Fair Trade buyer tomorrow that I couldn’t rescheduled… so no Bollywood fame for me : ( (That would have been such a fun fact for when I play “2 truths and a Lie”)

Now the bad: Today I visited 2 brothels in Mumbai. It was an incredible, eye-opening experience that will likely haunt me for life. It was sort of like watching “Schindler’s List” – horribly depressing but you’re glad that you’re more aware of what’s going on in the world after doing it.

What surprised me was that it really was worse than anything I had seen in movies or read about in books. I didn’t think anything could be worse…

The 1st brothel was enormous. It must have been 10 levels high with girls standing everywhere. The girls were wearing (easy to remove) dresses or mini skirts and all wore heavy makeup. The NGO workers told us that until recently the girls walked around undressed. The girls live in cramped rooms with 2+ beds that have sheets hung that you can pull around to hide what is happening in your bed. There were condoms and condom wrappers littered everywhere (which I guess is a good thing, but hard to see). The bunks have plastic tarp on them. I was invited by one prostitute to sit on her bed, and it gave me the heebie-jeebies to think about what took place there. 3 of the 4 girls we talked to there were clearly minors, and it broke my heart to see them in that disgusting place. One had just arrived 2 months before after being tricked (she thought she was coming to the city for a factory job). Unfortunately, even after just a few days of being gone, most families won’t take their daughters back if they are returned, because they are ashamed and worried about the family reputation. Another thing that surprised me was that the older prostitutes were getting in on the action by actually buying girls themselves (from broker “pimps”) or renting out their beds when they weren’t using them to street prostitutes who don’t have their own rooms to use for sex. Girls in this brothel cost $6-10.

The 2nd brothel was much smaller, dirtier, darker and more disgusting. Imagine finding a really gross abandoned building and moving in. It would have been the perfect scene for a scary movie… Unlike the 1st brothel (where the women are hidden inside), women at this brothel can stand on the street to beckon you in, and cost as little as $1. The women I spoke to at this brothel were actually MARRIED and their husbands supported them doing this for money. It’s amazing how extreme poverty can change the way you view your choices.

The whole experience made me want to throw up because I was so sickened by the brokenness in this world. But we have to see this stuff so that our hearts can be broken like God’s, and we can work for change.

Later a 15-yr old beggar girl came up to me with a baby. People here say not to give to them, because (just like in “Slumdog Millionaire”) they belong to begging groups that essentially rent and drug the babies they hold and then give any money them make to their “pimp” (that might not be the right word – but you get what I mean). But this girl asked for milk and rice for the baby and that threw me because I wasn’t sure what to do. The baby really did seem drugged, but food seems harmless to give. So in the end I bought her the rice and baby formula and spent a small fortune on it (by Indian standards). I’ll never know if it was wise or if I was being a sucker, but I’d rather have a clear conscience and know that at least I tried to help.