Had she not sent me away from here to study, I would’ve probably been consumed in the same profession as my mother. I am grateful to Lalithaa Ma’am for having enrolled me into a school. Education has proved to be a very important tool with which I can prove myself and beat the stigma attached to belonging from a red light area. Our background haunts and threatens us with rejection at every step in our lives. The only thing that was left for me to do was slap him. When I objected, he said to my face that he didn’t think I’d have a problem with him making a pass at me because, again, I ‘belong to that place’. Clearly, he didn’t value the term and what it meant. He used to stay very close to my hostel, and would always call me ‘bachcha’. “This one time, when I was in Class 10, this man who had been guiding me since I was much younger, made sexual advances towards me. Just because I live on GB Road doesn’t mean that I partake in what makes this area infamous. This particular school didn’t even bother to go through my CV or take a look at my certificates. In one of the job application forms I’d filled out, I’d mentioned GB Road in my address. It is, after all, my future that’s at stake. But I do want to settle down in a job before I disclose my entire truth. “I don’t want to hide anything from anyone. I want to show each one of them that my background doesn’t make me who I am, my potential does. My crime, as they would all often say was that I ‘belong to that place’. Even an aunt, who practically raised me till I was about 12-years-old, passed a remark that I wasn’t to be blamed for. I could tell from the way they looked at me. “Not only my friends, but even the office staff and a few teachers judged me. It’s not my mistake that I was born to someone who works at GB Road. These words would pierce right through me.
So much so that if I’d have an argument with any of them, I would get to hear ‘you’re just like your mother’. I assumed that my friends won’t judge me based on my mother’s profession. When I’d accepted things and made peace with them, I decided to open up about it to my friends. When I learnt about my background and what my mother does for a living, I didn’t take to it positively, initially. I stayed there in a hostel and wasn’t aware of my own reality until I was in Class 11. As a child, I was sent to Uttar Pradesh to study. “Although, this place I belong to, has also led to a lot of conflict in my life. I was born here, I’ve spent all my vacations here – this place will always be home to me. But moving out doesn’t imply that my relationship with this place changes or gets crippled in any way. This is what I’ve been working for all my life. “My biggest dream, however, is to move out of GB Road (Delhi’s red light area) along with my mother. Hence, teaching, not to mention that it’s a respectable profession. I would’ve loved to be a full-time choreographer, but I won’t be able to support myself on that. The plan is to teach English in schools and choreograph routines simultaneously.
I want to become a choreographer as well. I’m learning Bhratnatyam from Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan and western dance from Delhi Dance Academy on alternate days. Until I get one, I’m trying to use the time on my hands productively. I’ve applied in several places for the position of an English teacher. I’ll go down that line later some time if fate allows me to. Although, I still think I’d make a great reporter. I didn’t want to waste an entire year just because I couldn’t apply for journalism, so I took up B.Ed. But a few personal issues cropped up because of which I couldn’t pursue journalism. I graduated in BA (Bachelor of Arts) and wanted to take up journalism after that. That’s when I visited the science laboratory in school, witnessed a few senior girls dissecting some animal and figured out that it’s not my cup of tea. “I wanted to become a doctor till I was in Class 10.