She calls out to the man on the street “Sir, can you help me?
It’s cold and I’ve nowhere to sleep Is there somewhere you can tell me?”
He walks on, doesn’t look back He pretends he can’t hear her
He starts to whistle as he crosses the street She’s embarrassed to be there
Oh, think twice, it’s just another day for For you and me in paradise
Oh, think twice, it’s just another day For you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it
She calls out to the man on the street He can see she’s been cryin’
She’s got blisters on the soles of her feet She can’t walk but she’s tryin’
Oh, just think twice, it’s just another day For you and me in paradise
Oh, yes think twice, it’s just another day For you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it, just think about it
Oh Lord, is there nothing more anybody can do?
Oh Lord, there must be something you can say
You can tell from the lines on her face You can see that she’s been there
Probably been moved on from every place ‘Cause she didn’t fit in there
Oh, yes think twice, it’s just another day For you and me in paradise
Oh, yes think twice, it’s just another day For you, you and me in paradise
Just think about it, just think about it
It’s just another day For you and me in paradise

This song by Phill Collins often makes me brood…makes me ponder on whether we are humans with their superior intrinsic ethics and principles or are we just bloody hypocrites trying to pretend something that we are not.
Perhaps humanity… merely means civilizations, and the words associated to it like benevolence, compassion, charity or empathy has absolutely no significance ….and the ones harboring these sentiments are exceptions… errors of humanity, fallible and disturbed.
I often feel that perhaps we would have been better off as apes and monkeys, we could at least bear a clear conscience but then I realize humans have evolved and so has our scruples… we are beyond the narrow range of self-realization and compunction …. Our conscience no longer cause us any inconvenience. It no longer evokes a sense of angst or remorse in us. We have reached the pinnacle with all its splendor… we have become true humans, even resisting our very weaknesses that once held us back from exploring the alleyway of decadence. We have emerged as victors…we have defeated our morals our insight… our virtues… oh, I sound so completely fucked up, ‘virtues and morals’? Sounds theatrical does not it; I better shut up now before someone else suggests me to do that….here…. ‘chup’….I become…




written by ananya chatterjee

The red stains of betel juice, the sickening stench from the dimly lit alleys, songs from popular b-grade Hindi films trying to overdo the loud murmurs of several casually uttered abuses it all seemed to allure us with its inexpensive vulgarity.
Men with bulging bellies, torn ‘loongis’ and lecherous glints that made no attempt to conceal their lusty stares… and women with their freshly starched drapes barely covering their unrestrained bosoms , colored in the brightest of pink, gold and green, reeking of cheap perfumes and strings of ‘gajraas’ waiting to appease their sexual appetite…
Amidst the several objects of deal there stood the traders… the ones who had once been quibbled over too…the ‘pimps’ who seemed to enjoy, even revel at now being the perpetrators of the deed that seems horrendous to our suave eyes. It seemed to ease their agony, their slur; they are perhaps avenging themselves, making up for their long stolen pride… ‘Ijjat’ as commercial Hindi films often refer it as, defiling the term and the meaning, giving it a touch of contemptible humor. Human sentiments are often degenerated and commercialized and ‘ijjat’ fucked both figuratively and literally.
However, what certainly is surprising even shocking is the fashion in which these negotiations take place without the wink of an eye in an almost untailored style as if its not flesh and blood being purchased but mere items without sentiment or emotions…
The deliberate seduction captivates and defeats many with their loose hanging wrinkled moralities… the customer varies in size and shape… but all with one common impulse ‘inadequacy’… the desire to be desired…
‘jouno palli’… perhaps the only alcove where ‘jounango key keo hridoy bole bhul kore na’…where even the curse of impotency is eradicated by the orgasms that are so meticulously faked by the professionals to gratify their clients… rich and poor alike.
Where a human is no longer bound by logic or the morality imposed by the society and ‘jounota’ is not an object of disdain or contempt…


Dedicated to the sex workers around the world. Kudos to the professionals…who have had the guts to struggle against the atrocities inflicted upon them as also the stigma attached to their very entity.

written and sketched by ananya chatterjee