Book Review | True Story of Journalist Growing up in a Kotha

Manish or Monty (named after Rishi Kapoor in Karz) is born in a squalid kotha in north Calcutta’s Bandook Gully, amidst grunge and violence, and he doesn’t know any better till he’s sent to a boarding school in the hills by his astute mother, who knows that an English education can make all the difference in her son’s life. And it does. Otherwise, Monty would have possibly turned out to be another heroin addicted pimp in the area or a hooch making rickshaw puller like his cousins in Bhat Nagar in Pimpri. The other thing that saved Monty was his insatiable urge to read. It kept his imagination alive, created his passion to think and made him the writer he is today. The compulsion to tell his mother’s story was always there. But in one Christmas party when he ran into a well-known author who said, “I read your essay about your mother working as a prostitute”, and Manish corrected him and said, “Tawaif”, that is when he was sure, “It feels urgent for Mother to tell her story.”

The courtesan Rekha’s beginnings are humble: a drunken father, many siblings, a struggling mother and, of course, abject poverty. She is married off as a child to an older man, goes through abuse, before she is sold off to the tawaifs by her own mother-in-law. Rekha is destiny’s child. She chooses her journey and moves from north Calcutta’s dingy lanes to Bombay kothas, and learns to handle goons and the mafia, not to forget aggressive kothewalis and their sidekicks thrown along the way. She makes a name for herself as a skillful dancer and manages to earn enough to look after her family and put her son through English medium schooling.

A salute to Manish Gaekwad for being able to lay it all bare in this page-turner. He doesn’t squirm, nor is he bashful. From being a “naazuk” child, his sexual exploits right from school and in the kotha, him witnessing his mother’s romps, the kotha experience, the people in and around, and of course the patrons who would grace the jasmine scented musical evenings, Manish tells us all. His detailing is vivid and he leaves nothing to the imagination, not the language, certainly not the emotions. Manish has a gift with words, but he doesn’t take refuge in that either. His relationship with his mother is also very real, sometimes hurting, often misunderstanding, but never lacking in love. It is heartwarming how he takes care of his mother in her final days. Rekha was unlettered. She missed out on this tribute by her son.

Nautch Boy: A Memoir of My Life in the Kothas

By Manish Gaekwad

HarperCollins

p. 216; Rs 499