Mumbai: In the second phase of the Census, some of the city's teachers entrusted with collecting data for the exhaustive unique identification project had the task of enumerating the residents of Kamathipura, the largest red-light area in the world. The experience did not elicit an encore from them, as became obvious from their accounts.
The teachers, quite bluntly, said it was "embarrassing" to get a brothel to do the headcount in. Other than the fact that they had a tough time getting details from the prostitutes, they found the vicinity nauseating -- some fell sick in the "cramped, seedy surroundings".
But the teachers, allotted lanes 13 and 14 of the area, completed 185 houses in five days, with much reluctance and patience.
There were many hurdles. Fearful and unforthcoming, prostitutes residing in the area refused to give accurate data, bluffing the enumerators with false ages and names. In fact, some changed names from one day to the next, and no one gave their age to be above 30, despite the wrinkles giving them away.
Anxious
One of the teachers from South Mumbai had been an enumerator in the first phase of the Census last year as well. She said that she was so anxious to venture into the alleys of Kamathipura that she took her husband along. But he was mistaken to be a customer, she said, so she went alone this time.
"We had to climb two or three floors in dark narrow stairwells to reach the women living there. Though they were not offensive, it was still scary to enter places with no light or ventilation.
At times, I felt I would be kidnapped and dragged somewhere," she said. "We even asked for police protection. But, officials thought prostitutes may not reveal their details in front of cops, thinking the information is so that cops can raid them."
The teachers were instructed not to force anyone to give details, but to deal delicately with them, and get the facts right. It wasn't that easy. An NGO's help had to be enlisted.
"The prostitutes were hesitating to give their real names or reveal the number of members living in a room. Some gave different names on different days. But the NGO Bombay Teen Challenge, that works in the area, helped us interact with them and speak with them in their language some of them were Nepali.
The social workers accompanied us and convinced them to state the facts. It worked in some cases," the teacher said.
"It would have been equally difficult for older or male teachers. The buildings were lightless, airless and cramped. It took considerable courage and patience to finally finish the task," an enumerator said. In some tenements, the residents and interiors had changed.
In others, girls who were marked in last year's Census were not present.
Said another teacher, "When I started Census work here, I fell ill for two days because of suffocation. That is how narrow and unventilated the buildings are. Even in broad daylight, little was illumined in these rooms."
Eyewitness
A MiD DAY reporter decided to accompany the teachers on the headcount in Kamathipura yesterday. Here is her narration of the eventful day:
I met the teachers at 11 am at a clinic where they usually meet. There were three of them. We first went to the place where the NGO operates from, and with two social workers, left to do the task at hand.
One of the social workers was Nepali and knew the language. Half an hour later, we were in a house on the ground floor, outside which stood a woman. The teachers asked her for her name and that of the other occupants. She just stared at us, looking confused about the enquiry.
The teachers showed their identity cards and asked her for the names again. She called out to someone named More who figured in the teachers' records to speak to us. More gave us all the names of the women staying there, including the one at the door.
Some women registered in last year's Census did not live in the house anymore. Next to the house was a paan-bidi shop. The shop owner was surprised that his name was there in the records from last year.
A quarter hour later, we moved to the next house. Since the woman living there was Nepali, the social worker's language skills came in handy. Despite a lot of cajoling, she didn't give her full details. She only mentioned two women living in the house. But we saw more sitting inside. We just left.
Around noon, we went to the first floor where some men were working in what looked like a cottage industry of leather bags. After noting down their details, we headed to the second floor.
It was dark. The women on the floor claimed that people living there last year had left and that the place was run on a to-let basis, so residents kept changing. She gave some name but I sensed that she faked them. She claimed not to know the surnames.
After half an hour on that floor, I started suffocating. The room was made of wooden blocks. There was no window or anything for ventilation. The light inside the room was dim, if it was there at all. The space was full of dust.
The walls were grubby, stained and spat upon I remembered the paan shop outside. I thought I could hold my own, and told myself I was all right. I stood there for a while, feeling that I was going to faint. I waited for the feeling to pass. I asked for a chair and sat down. Something wasn't right. It was me. I vomited.
A teacher accompanied me downstairs to the clinic where I had met them. I vomited again on the first floor. I could not bear the suffocation. I wondered how people lived there; how the teachers had completed five days of Census duty in Kamathipura. I looked at the watch: 12.30 pm. I had survived exactly an hour there.
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