A woman’s life story of betrayal, exploitation and daily humiliation has shed some of its bitter taste, thanks to her fighting spirit and one of Bengal’s favourite winter sweets, patali gur.
The trafficking survivor and mother of two, back with her husband but an object of neighbour’s taunts, has for the past two years been earning a semblance of a steady income in winter by trading in date palm jaggery.
Between December and the first week of February this year, the 29-year-old resident of a North 24-Parganas village, around 65km from the heart of Calcutta, has made a profit of a little over Rs 5,000.
It’s the most she has ever earned. More important, it has given her encouragement to keep battling the odds.
She procures the jaggery from local farmers at Rs 230 a kilo and sells it in the neighbourhood for Rs 250. Her clientele includes a handful of NGOs, offices, shops and homes.
“I want to scale the business up, but I need capital for that. Most of what I earn goes into family expenses, including my children’s education,” she told The Telegraph. “But the income gives me hope that I can stand on my own feet.”
Selling patali gur, however, is a winter business viable mainly between December and February. The rest of the year she stitches, making around Rs 70 a working day, but work is irregular.
Her mother had deserted her father, who remarried but neglected his children. She was forced into marriage at 14.
Following a quarrel at her in-laws’ home, she returned to her father. A local youth befriended her and sold her off to the flesh trade in February 2010, when she was 15.
“The girl was very depressed. The man offered to take her out one day,” said Rumashri Barik, a social worker with the Barasat Unnayan Prostuti, a survivors’ collective in North 24-Parganas.
“They were to visit his aunt’s house in Burdwan but she was taken to Budhwar Peth (a red-light district in Pune). She was rescued in a police raid after six months.”
Barik mentored the survivor, who spent some time in two rehabilitation centres or “homes” and received training in vocations like stitching.
Her ordeal did not end when she returned to her husband in July 2011. She faced humiliation every day, from her in-laws, parents and neighbours.
Her relatives would accuse her of bringing “dishonour” to the family, and the neighbours branded her a “bad influence” on the children. She would hear catcalls and taunts everywhere.
“At times, when the humiliation became unbearable, she would have fits of rage. That only led people to make more fun of her and call her insane,” Barik said.
A case against her alleged traffickers is going on at a Barasat court. Two men who were arrested are out on bail.
Her application for victim compensation is pending with the district legal services authority.
“If I receive any compensation, I shall invest most of it in my business,” she said, a steely note creeping into her voice.