Like many of her friends, 40-something Gurgaon-based professional, Vaishali was bored with her life which revolved around her job, a constantly-travelling husband and two teenage kids who were busy with their lives.
Longing for excitement, Vaishali decided to go out and get a life for herself. She stumbled upon a male escort service on social media and decided to check it out. While many were euphemisms for male sex workers, after research, she did find one she liked.
Soon, she had found herself a companion, an MBA student, Dinesh, 27, who was part of a 500-odd ‘club’, a meeting hub for clients. Vaishali now goes out once in while for dinners or parties and so far there has been no sex involved. The cost: Rs 7,000 per date and sometimes, a gift.
Meanwhile, 55-year-old Tina, married to an industrialist 20 years older to her, says she turned to male escort services 10 years ago when her philandering husband taunted her to find herself a boyfriend and leave him free to have one-night stands. Since then, Tina has sought male company through escorts for both sexual needs as well as non-sexual dating.
The explosion of social media and ‘closed’ chat rooms have given rise to these ‘clubs’ in almost every major city of India. In Bangalore for example, there are male escort services even organising ‘group holidays’ for bored women and in Hyderabad, a simple search on Google throws up over a hundred local listings, and even phone numbers of male escorts. However, many of these are rather murky and a spate of recent crackdowns by Hyderabad police have thrown these agencies further into the shadows. Recent reports also included claims from ‘job aspirants’ who alleged that they had been cheated by agencies demanding a ‘down payment’, often to the tune of half a lakh.
“It is a highly secretive world because if you’re caught, both parties are risking embarrassment. The boys are in it for extra cash and the women just want company. Some clients prefer meeting over Skype,” claims an ‘organiser’ who is based out of a popular hotel in the city.
But the holidays are when these escort agencies land their windfall. “In December, we had five of our boys travel abroad with female clients - at Rs 1 lakh each (conservative estimate). A few arranged for separate travel plans but mostly, they were together.
The ‘organiser’ is reluctant to share information about his clients and where they are mostly from but agrees most are from the affluent, upper middle-class parts of the city with cash to spare. “They will never dare to meet within Hyderabad, it’s always outside… in other cities,” he adds.
Manish has been “escorting” women for the last four years and he says he does two to three assignments a month to buffer his earnings as a sales executive. Manish is suave and has a convincing personality – in fact his first client was a young divorce of 35 who asked him to accompany her on an all expenses paid holiday to Nainital since she did not want to go alone. “Since I am educated and come from a decent family, women like me. I am chivalrous and take care of them and never make them feel cheap,” he says.
Women from well to do backgrounds are the ones who usually engage escorts. “They are specific about the way the escort must dress and conduct himself. Apart from money, these men are also showered with gifts,” says Arpaan who has been running an escort service for the last three years.
Sanjeev, who operates in Delhi and Mumbai, says that payment for a weekend could sometimes be as high as Rs 1 lakh. “Social media are just hubs to exchange information for meeting details. The real stuff happens offline.”
BOX:
One can, at the click of a mouse, find sites, which lure both escorts and clients. Both in the print media and online sites you can find announcements like these:
We provide our service in all major metro cities in India. You can work in your home city. Lot of leads are available for this month.
The final price depend on your profile, our client fix your price for your service.
Yes, you provide your service for females only. age: 21-45 years,
If you wanted to join our club u have to submit your 2 profile photos, ADHAR card, Ration Card and Voter ID card is must. We dont take any charges to associate with us.
If you don’t have any id proof of above then you are not able to join us, so don’t waste yours and ours time by calling. We dont entertain fake calls (sic).
