In India, sex on the beach comes with a price tag

We pay the 120 rupees (about $2.50) for our drinks, gather our belongings and leave behind the well-dressed Indian youth enjoying light conversation as they smoke hookahs. We run across the street, careful to not get hit by the speeding rickshaws, and arrive at the other Mumbai. On this side of the street, along the Juhu beach and near the Juhu Police Station, one can buy a prostitute for less than the price of our lemonade and chai tea.

I am with Rajendar Menen, a journalist and author formerly with the Times of India who has spent 20-odd years covering Mumbai’s sex workers and drug addicts. Raj has offered to help me learn about the darker side of Mumbai, and we will start, he says, with a walk along the Juhu beach.

I have just met Raj, though I have been to the Juhu beach before. I came last Sunday night to meet some (new) friends at Aurus, a bar-restaurant with a dance floor and air-conditioned dining room. My friends and I drank beers in an open-air section as we reclined on soft pillows and a white, bed-like sofa under a canopy top. We were perched high up off the ground, and we had a gorgeous view of the sea in the distance and the beach down below.

As we chatted about Mumbai, young children stood on the sand below us, jumping up and down as they shouted out at us, waving their arms and laughing, asking for money.

We smiled at them, shook our heads no and continued chatting.

Tonight, I am one of the ones down below. And the scene down here is quite different.

As soon as Raj and I walk onto the beach, he directs my attention to a woman about 50 feet in front of us. “She’s a prostitute,” he says.

I look and look, but I don’t see her.

“In blue,” he says.

“She is a prostitute?” I respond.

The woman is not a skinny little thing in a tight black skirt and tube top. She is a rather plump woman wearing a blue sari that covers her entire body. She is standing on the beach, chatting with another woman.

“How can you tell she is a prostitute?” I whisper as we walk past.

“I just know,” Raj says.

We walk along the beach, and Raj points out which women in saris are spending a quiet evening with their friends, and which ones are waiting for men to solicit them. Sometimes, the distinction is clear. For example, some of the women stand all alone, close to the water, doing nothing. One woman with big red lips walks quickly past us, her eyes scanning the crowd for a customer.

Usually, though, I cannot tell the difference between women out with their friends, and others trying to earn a living.

We walk along, and I see a pretty young woman standing close to a man. I think they are flirting. They are making the deal for the night, Raj says. Men pay according to how far the level of intimacy will go.  An hour at a cheap hotel lining the beach costs more, Raj says, than some time in the sand.

We continue down the beach, and Raj points out a family sitting on the sand with their children as three young women stand in a huddle nearby, waiting for customers.

Raj nods his head in the direction of the various players. Prostitute. Prostitute. Family. Love couple. Prostitute. Men on the prowl. Children playing. Prostitute. Boys sitting in circle smoking marijuana. Jogger. Prostitute.

We soon arrive at what Raj calls a temple. I imagined a building with people praying inside. This temple looks like an ornately decorated three-sided shack. A blue tarp covers one side; corrugated metal covers the top.  The tiny hut-temple is filled with statues and decorations and ritualistic instruments and a bell to ring. On the left, sticking out of the sand, stand two small Jesus crucifixions. They are in front of a large red banner that has designs and a Hindu swastika.

I point out the Jesus crucifixions, and Raj says the temple is for all religions.

We eat some sweet dates that the men there offer us, and we continue on our way down the beach.

We soon arrive at an area where a fancy restaurant sits perched high over the sand. It is dimly lit, but I can make out tall rods that form a canopy over a sofa-bed. It is the Aurus bar and restaurant. And it is a world away.

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