Lady of the Night
Life and its polarities have always been topics of debates and discussions. What is good and what is bad dominates almost every aspect of our existence. Man is always attracted or curious about the "bad" while the "good" is just normal and boring. Prostitution has always been considered one of the evils of society, the ladies or girls are labeled as "bad" along with a wide vocabulary of phrases to describe their "fallen state". I was as curious as the normal average human being about these ladies who wear garish make up and gaudy clothes and stand on some bridges of Kolkata in daylight as well as early dark. I used to see them while going to Alipore and there used to be a queer silence in the car with some odd whispers saying "Look at them" while others turned their heads in the opposite direction in an attempt to shut out the seamier sides of the society from their lives. I was told that Kolkata has these "pick up points" in ...