Kamathipura 12th Lane, a narrow by-lane in the heart of Mumbai's oldest red-light district, is inseparable from the legend of Gangubai Kathiawadi, the iron-willed brothel madam who lived there during the last years of her life and ruled over the area's sex trade with an authority that made her a queen in all but name. The lane was once said to be the richest in Kamathipura, a place where the wealth of the sex trade translated into gleaming rows of Ambassadors, Mercedes and Bentleys parked along its length. Today it is a shadow of its former self, filled instead with cycles and rusting scooters, hand-carts, stray dogs and ordinary people engaged in petty work, with only a brothel or two remaining where dozens once flourished. Yet the lane's fame endures precisely because it was the seat of Gangubai's power, the place where journalists and ministers came to meet her, and where her memory is still kept alive in the framed pictures and statuettes that adorn the brothels of the area.

The Lane as Gangubai's Home and Seat of Power

Kamathipura 12th Lane was where Gangubai lived during the final years of her life, in a small room that also served as the nerve centre of her operations. It was here that journalists and ministers would come to meet her, drawn by her political connections and her influence over the thousands of women who worked in the brothels under her jurisdiction. Her political connections apparently won her an appointment with the then prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, at his residence in New Delhi, making her the only local brothel madam to secure an audience with the head of the country. The lane was thus not merely a residence but a site of power, where the boundaries between the criminal underworld, politics and the press blurred under Gangubai's watchful eye. She was known to hobnob with several journalists and ministers, and her daily routine, as recalled by her adopted daughter Babbi, began at six in the morning with the Gujarati newspaper Janmbhoomi and a cup of tea, followed by breakfast and a game of cards next door, for she was a hard-core gambler who gambled almost daily. Her vices were many: she smoked bidis, drank Ranichaap and chewed paan, yet these habits did nothing to diminish the awe in which she was held.

The Lane's Decline and Transformation

The contrast between the lane's past glory and its present state is stark and abysmal. Where Ambassadors, Mercedes and Bentleys once lined the street, there are now cycles and rusting scooters; where the richest brothels of the district once stood, there is now little more than hand-carts, stray dogs and ordinary people going about petty work. Unlike the other by-lanes of Kamathipura, 12th Lane has only a brothel or two left, a far cry from the time of the iron-willed Gangubai. The decline of the lane mirrors the broader transformation of the red-light district itself, which has been subject to constant agitation and pressure from civic authorities and school officials who wanted the belt evacuated on the grounds that prostitution could not be carried out within two hundred yards of an educational institution. Gangubai successfully spearheaded the movement against the evacuation of sex workers from the belt, but the lane she once ruled has nonetheless faded into a shadow of its former self, its wealth and power dissipated with her passing.

The Lane as a Site of Memory and Reverence

Even after Gangubai's death, which occurred of old age sometime between 1975 and 1978, Kamathipura 12th Lane has remained a site of memory and reverence. Effigies of her were placed in the brothels of the area soon after her death, and framed pictures and statuettes of Gangubai are still to be found in the brothels of Kamathipura to this day. A social worker from the area who was initially sheltered by Gangubai describes her as 'the queen of Kamathipura', noting that even today, if one asks anyone about Gangubai, they will be directed to a framed picture of her in their room; they may not have known her, but they have surely heard of her. Busts were also made in her memory and installed in Kamathipura, in brothels that were under her jurisdiction, so that she is revered like a goddess. The lane thus functions as a living monument to Gangubai's reign, a place where her legend is preserved not in official records but in the oral memory and devotional practices of the sex workers who continue to inhabit the district.

The Lane in the Broader Geography of Mumbai's Underworld

The significance of Kamathipura 12th Lane extends beyond its association with Gangubai to its place in the larger geography of Mumbai's underworld. The lane lies within the district of Kamathipura, which was itself built on reclaimed land in the southern part of the city, an area that came to be called Dongri after the levelling of the Dongri hills in the mid-1700s as part of the plan to merge the different islands of Mumbai. The low-lying patch of uneven land between Crawford Market in the north and the reclaimed lands of Kamathipura in the south thus became a distinct neighbourhood, dominated today primarily by Muslims and choc-a-block with rickety, old buildings, falling partially below the gigantic JJ Flyover. Kamathipura itself, as Gangubai argued in her famous speech at Azad Maidan, played a paradoxical role in the city: the notorious women of Kamathipura, she claimed, should be partly credited for the safety of Mumbai's streets, for by catering to the carnal pursuits of men they helped blunt bestial male aggression and protected other women from attack. The lane, as the richest and most famous part of this district, thus embodies the complex and contradictory position of the red-light area in the city's moral and social order, a place of both stigma and protection, of exploitation and of a strange, contested form of honour.