Stories of sex-workers in Heera Mandi, Lahore and beyond

Posted by Raza Rumi

A TV journalist prepared this bold documentary for a news channel but it was never aired for obvious reasons – electronic media remains conservative about taboo subjects. The documentary provides great insights into the way women live, work and identify themselves as sex-workers in Lahore’s oldest red-light district known as Heera Mandi (Diamond Market) ironically next to the great Badshahi mosque. Coverage of Multan in the later parts is also interesting.

The narrator obviously has his biases – the usual refrain of middle class Muslims of the subcontinent – but he tries hard to remain neutral and investigative. There is a good dose of Mujras inserted into the series for the viewers; and tit bits of the Hollywood/Bollywood melodrama on the oppressed ‘tawaif’ (prostitute). Whilst tragedies bring these women to the sex-trade, not all of them lament their lives. If anything, Mirza Ruswa’s Umrao Jan (way back in the nineteenth century) was pretty comfortable and empowered by her profession. Similarly, one of the interviewees says: “money is the father, mother and everything for tawaifs”. The head of Kanjar biradri says that girls are taught to be ‘men’, earning ‘horses’ fooling their clients! Not to be missed.

My favourite is the ‘client’ who confesses how intoxicating it is to be “in love” with a sex worker. One gets tired of ‘using’ a wife all the time he says. Wish this documentary had been aired.

The language of these videos is Urdu so it might not be accessible to all the visitors here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyRYGczqsQo&feature=related

Visiting the unmentionable bazaar of Lahore

Hamid Rashed’s visit to Heera Mandi is an engaging account that demystifies its snazzy reputation:

I visited Texali Bazaar of Lahore on August 16, 2009. I reached the infamous locality at 10pm and remained there until 3am.

A pimpled prostitute, wearing a black bra one size too small, laying on a stained mattress, awaiting the customers in a dusty room overpowered with strong smell of incense is the situation most people assume you into when you mention the name of this bazaar.

Contrary to popular practice of the visitors of this bazaar, mine was an informative trip. My friend Tariq Yar (from PTV) had invited me to Texali. I had a vague idea that the trip will be educational but didn’t know the extant.

Yar, who is doing research on the walled-city of Lahore voluntarily, introduced me to two of his friends. Advocate Iqbal, who also runs the Ustaad Damin Academy, and Mirza Rashid.

Iqbal is from Okara and is living in Texali for the past 28 years. He is a chronic bachelor and has no apparent appetite for facilities the neighborhood can offer at any time of the day.

Mirza is the inhabitant of the walled-city for the past so many generations. He knows the webbed streets of the walled-city like the back of his hand.

Read more here

Painting prostitutes, Pakistani brushes off religious hard-liners

By Ivan Watson
CNN

It’s hot and sweaty in a rat-infested room in Lahore’s historic red light district, a neighborhood of narrow alleyways lined with brothels.

A barefoot, long-haired woman is gyrating and twirling on the carpet, to the beat of a four-man band whose drummer sweats profusely as he pounds out a furious rhythm.

The dancer, who only gives her first name, Beenish, is performing a kind of Pakistani belly-dance called the mujra.

Her harmonium player, a skinny bald man who squints through coke-bottle glasses, has been performing like this for the past 50 years. But he says the art form is dying out.

Dancing Girls Of Lahore Strike Over “Taliban” Law

Patrick Cockburn and Issam Ahmed in Lahore
Friday, 12 December 2008

The dancing girls of Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, are on strike in protest against the tide of Talibanisation that is threatening to destroy an art form that has flourished since the Mughal empire.

The strike, which is supported by the theatres where they perform, was sparked by the decision of Lahore High Court last month to ban the Mujra, the graceful and elaborate dance first developed in the Mughal courts 400 years ago, on the grounds that it is too sexually explicit.

Sin and the City

By Saad Javed

Amidst its layers of histories and cultures, with its contrast of crumbling monuments, bustling food-streets, sprawling gardens, broad avenues with rickshaw trumpets, red sandstone colonial buildings, serene canal-cum-dynamic-public-bathtubs, labyrinthine old quarters, high rise glass and steel towers and ancient city gates, Lahore has so many pleasures to offer, so many virtues to display. And so much to hide. To hide and to nurture, the biblical seven cardinal sins…

Lust

He arrived at the famed Salahuddin haveli and saw that the party was in full swing. Familiar to the quarters, he found his way through the dancing, swinging bodies and managed to be served with the right blend of whisky. And he saw her first over the top of an ambassador’s bald head.

State should provide sex education

‘State should provide sex education’

* City lacks community centres where the youth can freely express themselves
* Popular social networking sites are being misused by the youth

By Ali Usman (Daily Times)

LAHORE: The state does not provide the youth with proper guidance regarding gender issues and sexual studies, leading to odd behaviour when they express their suppressed ideas in frustration at the wrong place and time, experts told Daily Times.

They said that even in big cities like Lahore, there was a lack of community centres where the youth could express themselves and exchange ideas. “When the youth is left with no way to express what they feel or think, they end up using the wrong channels to release their frustration. Proof of this is the social networking websites that are being extensively misused by Internet surfers, who upload obscene pictures and/or vulgar messages to them,” they said.

Sex, culture and pictures – top 5 searches for Lahore-Nama

I hardly get the time to look into the statistics concerning blog-visits etc. But this one was most revealing – Google’s earlier reports on sex obsession of Paks was not all that wrong..

pictorial lahore
whores in lahore
lahore women sex pic
old architecture photo india
heera mandi

Sex, spirituality and history: Searching Lahore?

A few weeks ago when I started this blog dedicated to the inimitable city Lahore; and was lazy to post original stuff – so whatever I found interesting I collated on this blog-space. Quite sheepishly I have to admit that I am most pleased with the way the surfers have stopped here and even commented. Like me, there are many a Lahore-lovers and hence the interest.

Though I was most amused why the traffic was going up – here are the top ten reasons why people halted at Lahore Nama – funny, real and of course revealing:

1. sexy hot lahore

2. name of books related culture of lahore

3. toxic waste multan road shahbaz sharif

4. old Lahore

5. map of old lahore walled city

6. hira mandi

7. pics of sufi shrines

8. shrines**

9. online mujra/sexy mujra

10. data sahib

I am wondering where is the sexy hot Lahore except the post on Mujras..

They say, LOL…

Hot ‘sexy’ Mujras have destroyed Lahore’s commercial theatre

Lahore was renowned for its experimental theatre and led the country’s art scene with its sizeable creed of artists, writers and directors. And, whilst that parallel culture of serious theatre is present, it has been sidelined by a crass and commercial brand of entertainment that was earlier popular for the lewd Punjabi jokes.

However, the newest brand consolidated during the 1990s has integrated the old Mujra form albeit in its destroyed shape. What has been the effect of this trend: women, children and families are not found in theatre halls. The larger purpose of theatre as an inclusive form of entertainment, interaction and participation is all decaying. Such is the impact of greed and commercialism. Commercial theatre is now a preserve for the oversexed, possibly under-laid male Lahoris; and rich men from the outskirts come to get a visual-lay to be supplemented by a real one besides the grand old mosque.

Today, someone forwarded this video and sent a link to a blog that has a collection of such stage-d mujras. It is noticeable for the Bollywood influence including the tattoos! I am not sure if they are that hot or sexy though this little “hot” number is redeemed by the attractive performer.

Well, watch it at your own risk!

LAHORE: Marginalised male sex workers vulnerable to HIV/AIDS

Photo: Tariq Saeed/IRIN

A significant number of masseurs working in Lahore are actually male sex workers

Source Mazaqah

LAHORE, 21 September 2006 (IRIN) – Under the illuminated Minar-e-Pakistan, the towering monument that marks the birth of the country, Pervaiz Din lays out the accessories of his trade. The tiny bottles of massage oil and aromatic colognes tinkle cheerfully as he pulls them out of a cloth bag and sets them out on a tray. Through much of the balmy September night, Pervaiz will await customers who seek a soothing roadside massage, a head rub – or something more.

“Some nights I get lucky. I get two or even three ‘good customers’ and I return home happy,” Pervaiz tells IRIN.

The ‘good’ customers he refers to are men who seek sex and will pay less than US $8 or so for a few hours with Pervaiz. They also pay for the room usually rented out in a cheap, ‘bazaar’ hotel, although some take him to the rooms or apartments in which they live.

“I have some ‘regulars’ who drop by several times a month. They really enjoy my services,” Pervaiz said.

Pervaiz is one of the hundreds of male sex workers (MSWs) in Lahore, the teeming capital of the Punjab province, and with a population of 8 million Pakistan’s second largest city after Karachi. Beneath its lush trees, and the domes and minarets of the Mughal buildings scattered across its older parts, scores of MSWs operate.

Alarming: Half of Lahore population drinks water with faecal contents

From Khaleej Times onlineLAHORE — Half of Lahore population has been drinking water having faecal contents, and even those living in the so-called posh areas are no exception.

 

 

According to a report of the Institute of Public Health, waste discharged from bowels (faeces) has been found in about half of the drinking water samples collected from almost all parts of Lahore. The samples tested by the institute were sent to it by different agencies including the city district government during the first two weeks of the month. IPH’s Epidemiologist Prof. Farkhanda Kokab says the institute had tested some 92 drinking water samples between May 1 and 15 and found faeces in 43 of them. “The presence of faeces in potable water is very dangerous and alarming. The authorities concerned must take a serious note of it and do the needful,” she said and maintained that posh areas were no exception in this case. “The best solution to ensure the cleanliness of drinking water is to boil it,” she suggested.

Because of the poor quality of water being provided by the government agency, people are switching over to bottled water. The number of bottled water users is going up by the day and the number of such companies is also on the rise. The price of 1.5 litre bottle of water is Rs 30, or equivalent to one litre of milk. This price is about 70 per cent of the soft drink of the same size. Time is not far off when the water, milk and soft drinks will be available at about the same price.