"I tried hard to get them to marry," says Saroj, Manju's 50-year-old mother. Manju and her sisters Nisha, 25, and Reshma, 24, as well as their 20-year-old bua (aunt) Chandani support a family of 40 including five brothers, their wives, their children and a brood of offspring from the trade. "Dhanda chokha hai (Business is good)," Manju smiles reapplying her lipstick in anticipation of another temporary suitor. This is perhaps the only place in Rajasthan where more motorists forsake the convenience of the flyover, taking the potholed side-roads instead to stop by or simply get a closer look at the daily spectacle. The imposing concrete flyover that bifurcated the Bedia basti in 2005 hasn't affected the trade. Often revealingly attired, with heavily made-up faces, accentuated by bright crimson or purple lipstick, they stand about beckoning potential clients. Present day Malaha (also known locally as Pachhi ka Nagla or 'bird village'), has more than a hundred Bedia women engaged in sex work. "Twenty years ago, it was the maximum any girl was paid for here," she says also proudly informing you how "rich customers from Jaipur" still come by asking for her. "I was just about 10 or 11 years old when my father, who is dead now, sent me to a well-off businessman in Dhaulpur," she says, appearing almost nostalgic recalling the Rs 10,000 her family received in exchange for her loss of virginity. Plying the only trade she knows from the profusely littered roadside near Bharatpur's Malaha village, Manju is a veteran. Diminutive but feisty, the sex worker is a Bedia, a lower caste community in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where young girls, often in their teens, engage in prostitution with the consent of the community. "Sex hamara khandaani dhanda hai (Sex is our family business)," says Manju Thakur, 30, who's zealously protective of what to her is a lucrative livelihood. Two sisters get curious about the camera as the third hides under a sheet.
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