"Le spose della città non leggono i giornali" (Nagarvadhueṁ akhbār nahīṁ paḍhtīṁ)

This short story deals with the urban, cultural and moral aspects of sex work in contemporary Banaras. In brief, it explores the interconnections and the dichotomy between the “sacred geography” of the city and the marginal red-light area of Shivdaspur, reflecting how religious morality, hypocrisy and corruption, arm in arm with real estate market, are rapidly changing the geographical boundaries of the red-light district while strongly impacting on the lives of its dwellers. As already happened in the second half of the last century, local administration and bureaucrats, along with the police and other coercive forces exert increasing pressures on sex workers and dancers/entertainers marginal female social groups to displace them from the image of the city. Nevertheless, on the ground, the latter try to resist and push back the institutionalized violence and these stratified forces without relinquishing to negotiate and contest, through their voices and localized practices, the on-going urban development projects and the spatial and hierarchical relations between institutional and informal, moral and immoral, the core of the city and the “infamous slum” where they live. Prose fiction often overlaps with the harsh reality of sex work in Banaras, offering the reader an imaginary where to find a personal perspective on this delicate topic.