PUNCH ABOVE MY FATE

The heroine of Emmy winner Ruchira Gupta's debut novel is about to be sold into prostitution... but she's not going down without a fight

- ANJULY MATHAI

Every year, when a damp mist hangs over the lentil fields near Girls Bazaar, the mela arrives in Ruchira Gupta’s book, I Kick and I Fly. An integral part of it is the cheap strip dance that takes place in the dance tents, where girls in skimpy clothes gyrate to music on the makeshift stage. The younger ones stuff their bras with rags and plastic balls to make their breasts look bigger. The book’s heroine, Heera, and her cousin Meera di used to lift the tarpaulin many times and watch these girls from the sidelines. Until Meera di becomes one of them.

Heera watches in horrified fascination as Meera di dances in a tight red dress, while a boy pours buckets of water on her to make her clothes stick to her body. One day, Heera fears, she too will become one of these girls bought by the owners of the dance parties from their fathers or guardians. The owners then pay for their marriage to a banana plant in a ceremony called Bisi Bele, and then auction the girl’s virginity to the highest bidder.

It is a scene vividly described, as by one who has seen many similar scenes in her life. Gupta is no stranger to the intricacies of sex trafficking, having spent more than two decades fighting it. That is why the world she creates in her debut novel feels so authentic.

But this annual fair, the ramshackle tents, the dancing girls, and the relentless pimps are just the backdrop. The story really begins when Heera watches a group of girls being taught kung fu near her school. As she joins them, the self-defence classes become her ticket out of this suffocating world of drugs, gambling, and prostitution.