Asrar said nothing. He had realized that many of the women he saw were sex workers. He had also seen a movie made on prostitutes and red-light areas. That movie was playing in his head. Ali threw the chocolate wrapper into the nearby drain from which two fat mice were peeping out. They were staring at a discarded chicken piece which a drunkard had thrown a few moments ago. Mosquitoes had alighted on the chicken piece. Flies were also competing to get access. No sooner had the chocolate wrapper been thrown in the drain than the flies headed towards it. The mice attacked the piece of chicken together. The mosquitoes flew away. A cricket that was lazing on a rice grain seemed to regard the mice with the utmost indifference. The chaos in the drain made the vulture cast his eyes on it. He looked down upon the mice with a sense of superiority and went back to looking at the Nepalese woman.
The pace of Mohammad Ali’s heartbeat increased, and his feet shivered. He entered the building opposite the restaurant. Two girls standing at the main gate of the building tried to stop him and strike up a conversation. One of them wore jeans, a white T-shirt and scarlet lipstick. The other one wore a sari and a body-hugging blue blouse with buttons in the front. She tried holding Mohammad Ali’s hand. He touched her cheek, whispered something and moved forward. Asrar noticed that two buttons of the blue blouse were undone and a Rs 100 note was carefully tucked into it. When Asrar passed the women, one of them spat out betel juice and told the other girl, ‘Madhuri’s customer!’
The other one said, ‘Madhuri gets them by doing French.’
The other one disagreed and said, ‘Do not talk rubbish.’
The one in the jeans answered with silence and raised her fingers to her throat as if to swear. There were many rooms in the building, but all of them were engulfed in darkness. A small 40 watt bulb hung in a corner but it was covered with spider webs. In fact, a few dead spiders hung from the bulb. At the end of a saffron light, a lizard slept comfortably on an open electric wire which had snapped from the switch.
On the second floor, in the veranda, on the door of the last room, stood a woman clad in a purple sari. Mohammad Ali said something to her. Asrar noticed that the woman had two roses stuck in her hair bun. She had applied a very strong perfume. The woman drew the curtain aside and shouted, ‘Madhuri!’ Asrar raised his eye to look at the door where a picture of Lord Ganesh adorned a tile. A horseshoe hung from a nail below the tile. Ali entered the room. Inside the room, along the walls were small-sized diwans which one could not call charpoys. On both ends of the diwan stood out teak poles that supported the curtains which covered the diwans. There were four beds in the room with little space in between. Madhuri moved towards Mohammad, looking pleased on seeing him. They talked for a minute or two. Asrar realized that they were well acquainted. Madhuri had a broad forehead, wheatish complexion and a bright face. She wore a red lehenga, which she had paired with a tight green blouse. Asrar noticed that there was a window in the room. It was curtained but light entered through the cracks.