DEVELOPMENT DILEMMA: Business has dwindled for the sex workers of Kamathipura in Mumbai and many have moved out of the area

Brothel keeper Valsamma is thinking of opting out. She has seen Kamathipura when it was abuzz with activity; and she is seeing it now, all old and dilapidated. The only two words that the sex worker from Karnataka knows are business and down.

Valsamma, who has been in the flesh trade for over 30 years, knows when things don’t look too good. She’s heard of builders holding meetings in the community, and she’s open to the idea of selling out. “If I get a good price, I will,” she says.

Mumbai’s oldest red-light district is looking at change. Not many venture into the area for sex anymore. And the land — bang in the middle of Mumbai — is being eyed by both the Maharashtra government and private realtors who see it as a pot of gold. And with business dwindling over the years, some of the sex workers feel that selling the houses that they have lived in for years may be the only way out.

Clearly, Kamathipura is not what it used to be. There was a time when its narrow streets were humming with life till midnight. But the scare of HIV/ AIDS — often spread through unprotected sex with sex workers — has driven business out of Kamathipura, says Dr I.S. Gilada, who has been working there since the early Eighties. “Now everything is quiet. Sex workers have to go out and seek clients,” he says.

Down the street, a few crumbling blocks away, is Mala, a 30-something sex worker, throwing furtive looks in the hope of finding a customer. Business, she says, has been so poor that she is lucky if she gets even one customer a day, who’ll pay her Rs 50-100 for sex. “Gone are the days when clients ordered the customary biryani in the brothel. Today they won’t even offer me a cup of tea,” grimaces Mala.

For many of the women at Kamathipura, sex work is no longer paying. Some have taken loans from local money lenders and the interest they pay is steep. Sometimes, when there’s no income, the women eat with their brothel keepers. “When we have money, we buy chicken. Otherwise it’s mostly vegetarian food,” says Mala.

Over the decades, Kamathipura — built by a tribe of poor artisans who migrated from the Nizam’s dominion in what is now Andhra Pradesh at the end of the 18th century — has found it hard to shake off the tag of Asia’s “largest red-light district”. But the area is as much a landmark of Mumbai as the Gateway of India. Old records mention the “Scarlet woman” who used to be much sought after in Kamathipura, way back in 1886.

In 2010, though, the sheen has washed off, which is how the realtors have stepped in. If their plans work out, the area will be developed the way neighbouring Bachchuseth ki Wadi — famed for its street food and dance girls — is being revived after a 2005 ban on dancing in the city’s bars. Bachchuseth ki Wadi is dotted with prominent blue rectangular boards perched high on electric poles, a few metres apart. DB Realty, as its logo announces, is there to take things to the “next level”.

The firm’s director, Salim Balwa, says he has acquired 3,700 square yards or over 33,000 square feet of land in Bachchuseth ki Wadi, on which he plans to construct two buildings. “One will be for the dancers and the other for the residents,” he says.

A similar fate possibly awaits Kamathipura, a cluster of 14 lanes with old, often crumbling buildings, stacked cheek by jowl. Seven of the lanes house brothels. Residents have learnt to share their space with sex workers, who spend the better part of the day lounging in cots in the filthy lanes outside.

“It has a bad name, but it’s as safe as any other place in Mumbai,” says Prakash Reddy, secretary, Communist Party of India Mumbai, whose father, G.L. Reddy was Kamathipura’s corporator from 1961-1968.

Many residents think so, because of which not everybody is open to Balwa’s plans. The realtor himself is unperturbed and says he has approached “everyone” in Kamathipura. “The red- light areas have no objections to redevelopment,” he says. “If those with 100 sqft houses get three times as much after redevelopment, it’s a good thing,” he says.

For developers, Kamathipura is another word for money. The area nestles between Bombay Central and Grant Road, where, as Dr Gilada puts it, property prices “double with every traffic signal you cross”. And it’s no surprise that the Maharashtra housing department too has expressed an interest in surveying the buildings in the 40-acre district for possible redevelopment.

DB Realty plays the emotional card, positioning its logo at the bottom of banners — promoting anything from a sports club to the Shree Krishna Seva Mandal in Kamathipura.

But not everybody is impressed. Resistance to private developers is gaining ground. Ramakanth Patkar, general secretary of Brihanmumbai Bhadekaro Parishad, a tenants’ association, says he would rather have the Maharashtra Housing and Development Agency (MHADA) redevelop buildings than entrust them to private developers. “We cannot trust them, as some residents have been duped by them,” says Patkar.

Over the last three decades, through hunger strikes and agitations, Patkar has been instrumental in getting 13 dilapidated buildings in the area — including his own — redeveloped by MHADA.

But Patkar is not blind to MHADA’s style of functioning. About 36 years ago, it took MHADA five years to redevelop his building. Hundreds of tenants whose buildings have collapsed in the area have been languishing in MHADA transit camps for up to three decades, says Patkar, who shares his one room tenement with seven family members.

But that’s life, says Patkar, who also heads the state beedi workers association, whose members — all women — work and live as tenants in Kamathipura.

For many, this is home — and few want to leave the area. Patkar’s friend and neighbour, national carrom coach Ramesh Chitti, says it is the ambience of the place that prevents him from moving out. “Nowhere else will you see so many festivals celebrated with so much fervour or have neighbours come over if there’s been a death,” says Chitti. “Moreover, we are surrounded by hospitals, schools, colleges and parks.”

In the backdrop are also skyscrapers, malls and offices, which only raise the area’s market value. While Patkar says the going rate in his lane is Rs 26,000 a sqft, others estimate that the average rate is Rs 3,000-Rs 8,000 per sqft. But after redevelopment, it is expected to increase 10 or 20 times. Right now, a square foot of land in upmarket Colaba costs Rs 25,000-50,000, while in Bombay Central, just a kilometre away, it’s Rs 18,000-25,000.

Not surprisingly, some welcome the prospect of redevelopment. Shiv Satyam, who owns a small sweetshop, says he looks forward to getting a brand new shop and money.

It will, however, be a while before Satyam realises his dreams. “Right now the proposal (for redevelopment) is at a very early stage. It has been submitted to the government which will study it before taking a decision,” says S.R. Hazare, chief officer, Mumbai Building Repair and Reconstruction Board.

A civic official who does not want to be quoted says the area will not be easy to redevelop. “It is very thickly populated and has narrow roads. The buildings are decrepit,” he says.

The road to redevelopment of Kamathipura may be a long and bumpy one. For someone like Valsamma, it may also see the end of an era.