Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre [34]
That morning he was the bearer of another piece of news that was to appall all those gathered at the teahouse.
“Padmini, Ratna and Sheela Nadar’s daughter, has disappeared,” he announced. “She hasn’t been home for four days. She wasn’t there this morning to help Sister Felicity with her clinic. Dilip, Dalima’s son says he and his friends lost her in the station at Benares.”
This piece of information sent everyone rushing to the Nadars’ hut. In the bustee, everyone shared their neighbor’s misfortune.
That winter Dilip, Padmini and the gang of young ragpickers that worked the trains had been extending their expeditions farther and farther afield. They ventured beyond Nagpur, even as far as Gwalior, which prolonged their absence by two or three days. Hopping from train to train, they roved the dense railway network of northern India with increasing audacity. One of the most lucrative destinations was the holy city of Benares, situated some 375 miles away, to which trainloads of Hindus of all castes went on pilgrimage. They could make it there and back in four days, which meant that if Padmini set out on a Monday, she would return in time for Sister Felicity’s clinic, something she would not miss for the world. These long journeys were fraught with danger. One evening when she parted from her friends to run and buy some fritters, the train left without her. It was the last one that night. Alone in Benares’s vast station overrun with travelers, vendors and beggars, Padmini panicked. She burst into tears. A man wearing a white cap approached and pressed a crumpled ten-rupee note into the palm of her hands.
“Don’t thank me, little one.
I’m the one who needs you.” He invited the little girl to sit down beside him and told her that his wife had just been called away to Calcutta to look after her dying father.
“She won’t be back for a few days and I’m looking for someone to take care of my three small children while she’s away,” he explained. “I live close by. I’ll give you fifty rupees a week.”
Without giving her time to answer, the man scooped Padmini up by the armpits and carried her to a car parked in front of the station. Like all great pilgrimage centers, Benares played host to a fair number of dubious activities. The prostitution of little girls did a particularly brisk trade. According to popular belief, de-flowering a virgin restored a man’s virility and protected him against venereal disease. The city’s numerous pleasure houses relied on professional procurers to supply them with virgins. These procurers often bought girls from very poor families, notably in Nepal, or arranged fictitious marriages with pretend husbands. In other instances, they simply abducted their victims.
Two other white-capped men were waiting in the car for an adolescent girl to be delivered to them. The vehicle took off at top speed and drove for a long time before it stopped outside the gate of a temple. Twenty girls crouched inside the courtyard, guarded by more men in white caps. Padmini tried to escape from her captors but she was forced through the gate.
In this city where every activity had sacred associations, some pimps tried to trick their young victims into believing that they would be participating in a religious rite. Padmini was captured during the festival of Makara Sankrauti, celebrated on the winter solstice. Makara is the goddess of carnal love, pleasure and fertility.
The young