[Reader-list] IFS '07 - Displacement of Prostitute - 4th Posting - june

[SUROJIT SEN]

Hi All,
This is my fourth posting.

  More on Bodmayes Jobdo ( Wicked Punished )
   
  Towards the end of his text, Bodmayes Jobdo, Prankrishna Datta observes that the Act 14 has put the wicked in an almost moribund state by restraining from going to brothels and indulging in lechery. Keeping aside their typical black-bordered dhotis, china-courts of Nayansukh brand and the lukchandi shoes on the aarkata, they have now engaged in baismani, engraving, pressmani and some other socially recognized occupations. His description is significant because it points to particular items of dress-typical of the babus in those days. Nayansukh stands for the fashionable fine cloth that babus were fond of. It was 20 yeards in length and 15 days in breadth. China court is a particular type of court or comforter after the Chinse style. Lukchandi shoes are the costly designer shoes. Aarkata is a wooden loft under the roof for keeping things.
  Prankrishna datta’s prose style is characterized by apt use of colloquial terms. Some of the occupations, he speaks of, need to paraphrased, baismani is carpentry – the name derives from vice( a clamp with two jaw ), a tool that carpenters and masons use. While by pressmani he means working in a printing press, engraving precisely is wood engraving. It may be added here that the Chitpur area around Sonagachi was known for both engraving and printing industries in the 19th century. Datta’s description reveals that the Act 14 affected mainly the poor, working people whom the author dubs as wicked. Datta end his text with a poem which in rough translations as follows:
  ‘what has befallen us!
  This act 14’, cry toughs.
  Constables go the rounds
  The official rule they announce.
  Alas, aren’t we now destitutes!
  Hopelessly wonder the prostitutes.
  Time seems to be upside down.
  Where we  go ( out of town )?
  With no black bees making advances 
  How can flowers retain their freshness!
  The act being so insulting
  We won’t have clients visiting.
   
  This is how the poem begins and then goes on to narrate the reactions of the prostitutes. They know that the babus would not like to record their names and hence stop visiting brothels.
  This means on the one hand they would lose their clients and on the other would have to expose themselves to doctors for medical examination.
  They deem it a great injustice done to a poor community of helpless women that they are. The poem also describes the ‘plight’ of the wicked clients as a consequence of new Act and finally ends with an ironical note which deserves to be quoted in full:
   
  ( Now that the babus are not going to brothels ). The housewives have had the good opportunity to enjoy the company of their husbands and delightfully they give kudos to the British Raj.  
   
  Surojit Sen

       
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