- Rajarshi Bhattacharya, Brahmin by birth, Atheist by logic
Answered March 26,2018 - Upvoted by Abhimanyu Saxena, Co founder at InterviewBit
There is this prostitute that lives down the road from our village. Everyone knows her as nashto meye (wasted woman). Whenever you cross her home, you can find some lewd teenagers shouting obscene comments, and laughing hysterically. Some of the “higher castes” don't even take that route, they avoid the “proximity” to such sin. She seldom gets out at daytime, because she's chased, whistled at, even manhandled sometimes; and the local police also supports the goons. She tried to file a case once, and they fined her for being indecent. She's the laughing stock and the butt of any joke in the evening meetings of both men and women.
But also, she has two kids, a beautiful boy and a lovely girl. She sends them to school. She never lets them into her 'workroom'. She keeps them healthy and fit. She never misses a parents-teachers' meeting. I saw her in the market once, and I could see one of the roadside sabziwalas touch her feet and call her Ma (mother)! Apparently she'd helped the man when his daughter was dying of illness. Her home is always clean, and though no one visits her, everyone is always welcome for a glass of cold water and a fruit; it's sometimes a mango, or a lichi, atleast a banana!
I call her Didi. My parents don't know this, but I have visited her since I was very young. She's closer to me than most of my relatives. I have seen her facing discrimination, assault, insult and even physical abuse, but I never saw one drop of tear shedding from her eye. After I got my job, I tried to offer her some money, but she just pressed my cheeks and said, “E lorai tor noy babu, e amake ekai lorte habe (This isn't your fight, my son. I have to fight this alone)”. She always smiles, she's always happy, and she lives life with a steely determination that I haven't seen anywhere else.
Respect every profession, because every profession is a battle against the World-a merciless, cruel judgemental World that we have to face every damn day of our life-a battle to survive.
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