Nath utaarna

Nath utaarna, literally the removal of the nose ring, is a term that carries two radically different meanings within the pages of this chronicle of Mumbai's underworld. In its original, traditional context, it is a tender act of the wedding night, where a husband removes the golden nose ring (nath) of his virgin bride while making love to her. But within the brothels of Kamathipura, the ceremony is a brutal euphemism for the deflowering of a virgin, a ritualized initiation into the sex trade that marks the violent end of adolescence and the beginning of a life of servitude. The book presents this ceremony not as a single event but as a recurring, defining ordeal, a grim rite of passage that several of its subjects must endure, each instance revealing the cold mechanics of the trade and the calculated deception that delivers young women to it.

The Ceremony and Its Meaning

The nath utaarna is presented as a grotesque parody of a wedding night, a performance staged to break a girl's will and initiate her into prostitution. The setting is deliberately theatrical: a young girl is forced to wear a red, bridal dress and sit on a bed sprinkled liberally with rose petals, her lips coloured a blood-red and a huge nose ring adorning her nose. An old song plays again and again on an old gramophone, the entire scene designed to evoke the atmosphere of a wedding night, even as the girl remains clueless about her fate. The ceremony derives its name from the traditional wedding night, where the husband takes off the golden nose ring of his virgin bride, but among sex workers, it is the adolescent's initiation into the sex trade. The ritual is thus a perversion of a sacred custom, using the trappings of marriage to sanctify what is, in reality, a sale and a violation.

The ceremony is not merely a physical act but a psychological breaking. The girls are often brought to this moment through deception and force, and the ritual itself is designed to crush any remaining resistance. The experience of Madhu, a sixteen-year-old who had eloped to Mumbai with a man named Shravan, illustrates the horror of the event. She was kidnapped from a lodge and brought to a brothel, unaware that Shravan had played middleman in selling her off for a thousand rupees. Forced into the ceremony, she was confronted by Jaggan seth, a man whose bloodshot eyes and heavy drinking signaled his intentions. Madam Rashmi had warned her against crying or showing any sort of reluctance, threatening that the man would thrash her to death if she did. The ceremony is thus enforced through a combination of physical threat and psychological terror, leaving the girl with no agency and no escape.

The Point of No Return

For the women who endure it, the nath utaarna represents a definitive break with their past, a point of no return after which their old identities are shed and a new, degraded one is assumed. This is most powerfully illustrated in the story of Ganga, who was sold to a brothel by a conman named Ramnik. After weeks of resistance, Ganga finally gave in, reasoning that her body had already been violated and used, and that there was no way she could erase those scars. She called for Sheela and told her she was ready to do whatever she wanted. That very night, she was sent for her own nath utaarna ceremony. Unbeknownst to both Ganga and Sheela, Ramnik had lied, selling Ganga as a virgin when she was not. Ganga went through the ceremony stoically, cringing deep down but cooperating fully with the seth, knowing that this was now her profession. The seth, more than happy with her, tipped her well and gifted her a gold ring. As he was leaving, he asked her name. After a moment's hesitation, she replied, 'Gangu.' From that point on, Ganga became Gangu, deliberately doing away with everything from her past. The ceremony is thus the moment of identity transformation, where the woman's former self is erased and replaced by a new persona shaped by the brothel.

The ceremony also reveals the cold, transactional nature of the sex trade, where a woman's body is a commodity to be bought, sold, and assessed. The seth who deflowers Gangu had visualised the perfect female form, and it matched hers to a tee; he was pleased that he would be the first to have all of her. The transaction is completed with a tip and a gift, a gratuity for services rendered, underscoring the complete commodification of the woman's body. The ritual is thus not only a violation but also a commercial exchange, a fact that strips away any illusion of romance or consent. The women who emerge from this ceremony are not brides but goods, their value determined by their compliance and their ability to please their customers.

The Broader Context of Female Agency

The nath utaarna is not an isolated act of violence but a symptom of a larger system that the book seeks to understand. The author explicitly states that the book is an attempt to understand the complex minds and the psyche of women criminals, and that these women were not blank slates written upon by dangerous male mafia members. There is no simplistic cause-effect way of looking at their lives. For these women, crime was not only a way of transcending their poverty and limitations but also a life-saving concept. The nath utaarna is thus presented as one of the brutal realities that these women endure, but it is not the entirety of their story. The book insists on their agency, their ability to push the boundaries of dominant moral codes, even as it documents the violence that shapes them.

This tension between victimhood and agency is central to the book's portrayal of its subjects. Gangubai Kathiawadi, who herself rose from such circumstances to become a powerful brothel madam, is a prime example. She is described as a five-foot-tall figure dressed in a white saree, who commanded immense influence over the women who worked in her brothels. When a girl like Madhu proved obdurate, it was Gangubai who was called upon to speak to her, a routine job for her. Gangubai's own story, which includes her nath utaarna, is one of transformation from a violated girl to a formidable power broker who could secure an appointment with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and give a stirring speech at Azad Maidan. Her trajectory demonstrates that the nath utaarna, while a devastating ordeal, was not the end of a woman's story but rather a brutal beginning from which some could forge a new, powerful identity.

The book also uses the nath utaarna to highlight the stark contrast between the private suffering of these women and their public personas. Gangubai, for instance, is remembered for her gold-bordered white sarees, gold-buttoned blouses, gold-rimmed glasses, and an artificial gold tooth, as well as her black Bentley car. This flaunting of wealth and status stands in stark contrast to the memory of her own initiation, a ceremony she endured stoically. Similarly, other women in the book, such as Tarannum Khan, the pin-up girl of a suburban Mumbai bar who allegedly made over Rs 1.5 to Rs 3 lakh every day, and Rubina Siraj Sayyed, a renowned beautician who became an underworld aide, are presented as complex figures whose public success is built upon a foundation of private violation and struggle. The nath utaarna is thus the hidden trauma that underlies their public achievements, a fact that the book refuses to let the reader forget.

The Ceremony's Enduring Significance

The nath utaarna is not merely a historical curiosity but a practice that the book suggests has enduring significance in understanding the world of the Mumbai underworld. It is a ritual that encapsulates the power dynamics of the sex trade, the commodification of women's bodies, and the brutal initiation that marks a woman's entry into a life of crime. The book's focus on this ceremony is part of its larger project of understanding the complex minds and psyches of women criminals, without glorifying them or reducing them to simple victims. By documenting the nath utaarna in such vivid detail, the book forces the reader to confront the brutal realities that these women faced, while also insisting on their resilience and agency in the face of such violence. The ceremony is thus a key to understanding the world of the book, a ritual that reveals the dark heart of the underworld and the women who navigate it.