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Desicritics.org: A Sudden Visit to Pakistan: Heera Mandi - The Dream House of the Whores
A Sudden Visit to Pakistan: Heera Mandi - The Dream House of the Whores
October 02, 2006
By Mayank Austen Soofi
I felt like a bridegroom who had come to pick out one of the three beautiful sisters.
Sitting next to each other in a blue sofa, they blushed and coquettishly glanced at us.
An old woman, with a straight back and shining-white hair, sat down on the floor, and talked of the heat and humidity. She had a firm, commanding voice that sliced and rebuked the air with the sharp tanginess of a most refined form of spoken Urdu. Unlike the brightly-colored and intricately designed shalwaar kameeze of the girls, the stern woman stood apart in an off-white dress and a white netted dupatta, carefully adjusted on her head.
It seemed like a cultured Muslim family. However, the girls were not sisters but prostitutes, and the old lady was not a mother looking for suitable boys for her daughters but a pleasure-house Madam.
We were in Heera Mandi, Pakistan's oldest red light district.
Crossing into the Red Light
Mian Naeem, a soft-spoken Lahore-based sculptor and art-critic, had agreed to take me for an excursion to Heera Mandi, a place I particularly wished to visit, especially after reading an excellent book by the British author Louise Brown - The Dancing Girls of Lahore: Selling Love and Saving Dreams in Pakistan's Ancient Pleasure District.
I was in Pakistan to take part in a conference for a visa free South Asia and was tied up with a series of seminars and speeches during the day. Night was the time to explore the city and Heera Mandi had to be a necessary pilgrimage.
A Road Leading to Sin
Mian Naeem parked his vintage car outside the periphery of Heera Mandi. It was past midnight, perhaps the right time to take a dip into the secrets of the flesh.
The evening had grown slightly middle-aged; the madams and their agents were likely to be more tolerant towards pleas for cheaper bargaining; the available girls, unlucky to be picked yet, hopefully more resigned in their choice for customers. Further, the shield of the deep-night darkness made it easy to imagine that Allah was perhaps too sleepy to notice his faithful venturing out to make sinful transactions.
The streets were crowded with the revelers of the night. Restaurants, and only restaurants, lined both the sides. The blazing fire in the tandoors, the complicated smell of chicken curry and gutter stink, the cries of the cooks, the laughter of the diners, combined to create a blurred sensation in the mind.
The path was narrow but not straight - we climbed up and down as if walking in the old quarters of a hill resort. The people who inhabited the ancient houses in these streets looked decent, making it difficult to believe that we were approaching a red light district.
The Ground Beneath Their Feet
Some more steps, then a right turn, and we walked under an open sky. "This is Heera Mandi", Mian Naeem declared.
A crowd of boys were cheering in a dimly-lit tin-shed where a snooker table glowed under a bare light bulb. There were carts selling bananas, biryanis and flowers. Brightly-lit eateries, with used chicken bones strewn on the floors, were filled to the brim.
There was no lady standing under the lamp-posts soliciting clients. There was no man acting like a lady's agent. The shaky, frail-looking structures rising up on both sides of the street ahead were gloomily submerged in darkness. Their doors and windows were closed and the balconies were sullen and quiet. We walked ahead and noticed an alley to the right. Two women, standing a short distance away, were whispering to each other. Their faces were cloaked with shadows. A thin man, with a garland of chameli flowers wrapped around his wrists, appeared from behind and overtook us with drunken steps.
Gradually the darkness began to lose its sheen. The street became livelier. As we penetrated deeper, more doors were found open; more windows gave view to the lighted spaces inside. Mian Naeem pointed across to a room jutting out into the pathway.
It had a large window and a most beautiful creation was peeking out from there.
She looked divine and more beautiful than the actress Aishwarya Rai. With a pimple-free fair complexion and fine shaped lips, her eyes expressed eagerness and hands signaled invitation. Her steps were as light as a bird as she hurried from the window towards the door. Dressed in a white lehenga, her anklet bells jingling music every time she moved, she looked all set to burst into a mujra.
There were no creams, rouge, eye-liners and powders disfiguring her face. A mild shade of maroon suggested the promise of a kiss from her slightly pouted lips.
Tempted by a Dancing Girl
Our eyes met and her face simmered of sentiments that suggested my walking away would break her heart. She looked pure, gracious and yet highly amorous. It seemed as if I was the wine she was thirsting for all her life.
Mian Naeem said that her name was Saira and that she used to be quiet coveted in her time.
But now, he informed, Saira was in her 30s and her business had gone down. Unlike in the past when she picked out only the handsome and the very wealthy, she presently took in any person who walked by her quarters. The revelation was disappointing. That she had singled out me was unremarkable in the light of this information.
More Sight Seeing
Three unshaven boys, looking hip in their long hair, sat in a shop that had its walls adorned with posters of Gone with the Wind and Casablanca. Guitars, electronic keyboards and drums were placed haphazardly on a wooden counter. It was a rock music band that accompanied the ladies in the private dance parties, a popular trend in upper class Lahore.
Heera Mandi, till a few years back, was acclaimed for its musical heritage. It boasted a rich tradition of Indian classical music and indeed many famous singers of the subcontinent were born, groomed and trained in its chambers.
Adjacent to this rock band was the sitting room where Mian Naeem had taken me to have a look at the 'three sisters'. It was suggested by the ragged-faced agent, who was standing outside, that a girl of our choice could perform a Bollywood dance for five hundred rupees.
After we took leave of the 'three sisters', Mian Naeem mentioned that there were higher prices for other kind of performances.
Indeed the highest possible price was always demanded for the betrothal of a virgin. Deflowering involved rituals that were not different from the ceremonies demanded by a proper marriage. Large sums were paid by the 'groom', feasts were thrown by the madam-mother and the blessings were offered to the girl as she prepared her initiation to the world's most ancient profession. Usually the most beautiful had their virginity sold to the rich sheiks and princes of countries like Saudia and Bahrain where they were flown and their temporary living arrangements paid for by their 'husbands'.
As we walked past more such 'sitting rooms', Mian Naeem pointed out the agents and provided tips on how to identify them. In many places, the rooms were closed from the front but there were camouflaged entrances from the sides. On one of the balconies lounged a bare-chested man while below the lady of the house was soliciting clients. A little ahead, brightly dressed women were quickly settling themselves in a cab which, according to Mian Naeem, would take them to the apartments of rich Lahori men.
The Unreal Reality
It was strange walking in the by-lanes of Heera Mandi. Officially, Pakistan is an Islamic republic where prostitution is punishable by death and where most of the women do not show their naked face to any male except their closest relatives.
Yet we were in a neighborhood, in the heart of Lahore, which seemed to have been frozen in time. It was as if the outer rules of the much real world could not intrude here. No one seemed to be bothered by the laws that were applicable in the rest of the city.
Heera Mandi was like a paradise where one could freely indulge himself in the pleasures of the flesh, where one could get away from the oppressed world of Shariat laws and Koranic injunctions; a balm which one could apply to soothe his soul made claustrophobic by so many morals; a relief which one could momentarily cherish amidst a life made predictable and burdensome by nagging spouses and aged parents. Heera Mandi was a world far away from the despairing headlines of Islamic fundamentalism, America's war on terrorism and Bin laden videos. It was a world very different from all the known worlds.
Heera Mandi was an easy place where life was unreal and where it was possible to experience unconditional love and fanciful sex....for a price.