Madhu

Madhu is a sixteen-year-old girl from a village who appears in the chapter "The Birth of a Sex Worker" as a victim of trafficking, and whose brief but pivotal story illuminates both the brutal mechanics of the sex trade in Mumbai and the singular power of Gangubai Kathiawadi to intervene in it. Her narrative is one of the book's clearest depictions of the violence that marked a young woman's entry into prostitution, and of the rare mercy that could, under the right circumstances, set her free again. Though she vanishes from the book almost as quickly as she appears, her case becomes a turning point in Gangubai's reputation and a precedent for how the brothel madam would treat the women under her control.

Abduction and Sale into the Brothel

Madhu's ordeal begins not with force but with deception. Just three weeks before her initiation into the brothel, she had eloped with a man named Shravan from her village to Mumbai, believing she was beginning a new life. The couple stayed in a lodge for a few days, until one day some people came and kidnapped her. She was yet to learn that it was Shravan who had played middleman in selling her off to a brothel for a thousand rupees. She was brought to Madam Rashmi, the woman who would preside over her deflowering. The price of a thousand rupees, a sum that would later be cited by Rashmi as a reason Madhu could not simply be released, marks the cold commercial transaction at the heart of her captivity.

The Nath Utaarna Ceremony

Madhu's initiation into the sex trade is staged as a grotesque parody of a wedding night. She was forced to wear a red, bridal dress and sit on a bed sprinkled liberally with rose petals. Her lips were coloured a blood-red and a huge nose ring adorned her nose, adding to the garishness of her appearance. An old song played again and again on an old gramophone in the room, and the setting reminded her of a wedding night; she was still clueless about why she was here. The ceremony was her 'nath utaarna', a euphemism for what is actually the deflowering of a virgin. The ceremony derives its name from the traditional wedding night, where the husband takes off the golden nose ring of his virgin bride while making love to her. Among sex workers, however, the nath utaarna is the adolescent's initiation into the sex trade.

The man chosen to deflower her was Jaggan seth, a client whose eyes were bloodshot from heavy drinking. In his mind he 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. Under his gaze, Madhu, though fully clad, felt naked. Madam Rashmi had warned her against crying or showing any sort of reluctance, telling her, 'If you cry, that man will thrash you to death. Do as he tells you.' When Jaggan seth began to take off his clothes, a chill ran down Madhu's spine. A horrible smell, a strange combination of paan, bidis and country liquor, hit her, and she turned her head away, unable to breathe properly. The seth caught her by the arm and whispered in her ear, 'Look at me ...' When she did not respond, he took hold of her chin and turned her face towards him, forcing her to look at his naked body. The man was the size of a blimp and had a massive, protruding belly, and she was amazed that he felt no shame.

Jaggan seth pushed her down onto the bed and climbed on top of her. He lifted her ghagra and slid his fingers between her legs, moving them slowly and repeatedly to elicit some response. Madhu closed her eyes to say a small prayer, hoping he would stop, not realising that her agony had only just begun. In less than a few minutes, he had stripped her of her red ghagra choli. She tried to resist, but the sixteen-year-old was no match for the obese seth. Tears rolled down her cheeks; the more she tried to push him off, the more like an animal he behaved. By the time the seth was done with her, raping her several times and thrashing her when she tried to hurt him by squeezing his penis too hard, Madhu was shivering, heavily bruised, humiliated, and in so much pain that for the first time since she had run away from home, she began to think of death.

Resistance and the Intervention of Gangubai

When Rashmi and her husband found out that Madhu had tried to hurt Jaggan seth, they beat her up. They also told her it was Shravan who had sold her to them. Though this came as a shock to her, Madhu did not shed a single tear. She refused to eat or drink and did not acknowledge the presence of people around her. She had become a stone, as good as dead. Initially, Madam Rashmi forced another man on her, but he stormed out angrily in a few minutes and demanded his money back, accusing Rashmi of keeping frigid women in her brothel. Fearing a drop in her clients, Rashmi decided against sending anyone to Madhu for some time until the girl fully recovered.

After a week of sheltering the girl, Rashmi decided she had had enough. There were only two solutions she could think of: one was to once again attempt to convince Madhu to accept her lot, and the second was to throw her out. The latter seemed easier but could get her into trouble with the cops. Then she thought of the only person who could possibly help her with her dilemma: Gangubai. Gangubai was a renowned brothel madam in the area who owned several brothels and had immense influence on the women who worked in them. After hearing of Madhu's obduracy, Gangubai decided to come and speak to her, treating it as a routine job.

A five-foot-tall Gangubai, dressed in a white saree, got out of her car and climbed the steps leading to Madhu's room. Other sex workers, who were either peering out of their balconies or were on the road looking for customers, bowed in respect when they saw her enter the building. Gangubai entered Madhu's room and latched the door, ordering everyone to give her some privacy. A chair had specially been placed in the hundred-square-foot room for Gangubai, but she ignored it and went and sat beside Madhu on the small cot in the corner, where the girl was sitting cross-legged. She asked Madhu her name, and listened as the girl explained that she had wronged and already paid the price for it, asking for one opportunity to ask for forgiveness, and declaring that if she failed, she would take up a small job in Ratnagiri but did not want to live in the brothel.

Gangubai looked at Madhu's face, as if trying to read her mind. After a few minutes she got up, opened the door and called out for Madam Rashmi. 'Let her go,' Gangubai told Rashmi when she entered, 'she is not meant to stay here.' Madam Rashmi was shocked. 'But we have paid a thousand rupees for her. How can we let her go?' Gangubai replied, 'I am aware of that. You can attribute it to business loss. In future, I don't want any girl being pushed around against her will. Do you understand?' She instructed Rashmi to ensure that Madhu was put on the right bus for Ratnagiri, and if possible, to send Pappu to drop her. Saying this, Gangubai left the room, leaving no opportunity for Madhu to thank her.

Legacy and Significance

The news of Gangubai's gesture spread like wildfire through the narrow lanes of Kamathipura. She was now known as the only brothel madam who did not give priority to business and money but to women. Madhu's flight also set a precedent for several other women, who now approached Gangubai. If their cases were genuine, Gangubai allowed them to leave; if not, she ensured that their escape was improbable. She had come to control Kamathipura's brothels with an iron fist, and her popularity among the people there soared with time. She protected the sex workers from men who either abused the women or took advantage of them by promising them marriage or did not pay them for sex. These men feared Gangubai for her connections with the underworld and the police; the sex workers, on the other hand, revered her as a mother, calling her Ganguma.

Madhu's story, though brief, encapsulates the book's central argument about women in crime. As the author notes, these women were not blank slates written upon by dangerous male mafia members, and there is no simplistic cause-effect way of looking at their lives. For Madhu, crime was not a choice but a trap, and her rescue by Gangubai demonstrates that even within the brutal economy of the red-light district, a woman could exercise power to protect another. Her case is the clearest example in the book of Gangubai's stated principle that no girl should be pushed around against her will, a principle that would define the madam's legacy as the protector of Kamathipura's sex workers.