It was my eighteenth birthday, a special day for me. This is the day when I would go to the city for the first time in my life and stay there for the next few years. My mother told me that my father would come and take me with him. I had only seen him a few times in my life. My mother also briefed me that I would be inducted into the trade of prostitution after a ritual tonight. I was thrilled that I would join the trade of the family, but was also deeply sad that I would be away from all my sisters, aunts, and especially my mother.

My mother understood my feelings and said that I would see my father more during this phase of my life than I ever have and ever would again. She also said that I may also meet my elder sister Sonali, who also had been gone to the city, three years ago, on her eighteenth birthday. Besides, my mother lovingly told me, it was only till I reached the age of 27 that I would be away from the village. Then I would be married to breed children and raise them here under the guidance of the elders.

Our village is an all female village, hidden in a remote area, having its own culture. Only husbands are allowed to come and copulate with their woman so as to make them pregnant.Special huts are built on the fringes of the village where the husbands can meet their wives. Once their woman becomes pregnant, the husbands must leave.

The female children are looked after till they reach their 18th birthday, when they are taken to the city. There in the city, their virginity is sold, and they are to entertain men or women with sex till they are 27 years old. When women reach the age of 27, they are sold to a husband, and bear children for him until she no longer can. She raises her children in the all-female village with the help of older women. The only time they see men after marriage is to be impregnated. Special herbs are given to young women to keep their sex drives high at all times and to prevent pregnancy.

My mother packed my things up, and promptly my father came early in the afternoon. He loaded my luggage and me into a car for my first trip to the city.

The car was luxurious and my father was driving it, while I sat besides him. My father kept looking at me. He then told me, “Rupali, don’t be afraid, I have connections and I am putting you in the hands of a very good friend of mine. He is the leading seller of women to the brothels that caters to the richest men.”