SIXTY FIVE
The phone rang. It was Vikram, probably to ask if she had a comfortable flight.
“Hi! Hi!,” she said, picking it up.
“You sound excited,” he said.
“I have just checked into Four Seasons in Milan. Did you know this hotel was a convent earlier? A convent turned into a desirable, glamorous hotel. Isn't that amazing?”
“Nimesh will be missing you,” he said plainly.
“He was a little upset. I'm sure it's no big deal. You know how he is. Besides I am here only for four days.”
“Take care and do well in your conference,” Vikram said.
“I will.”
The room was grand. The bathroom was huge. She filled the bath tub with warm water and poured bubble soap. She soaked herself in that good smelling self-made sauna. Weirdly enough, she felt an urge to make love with Vikram.
She finished the bath and slipped into a bathrobe. She applied some moisturizer on her body. The room was big with a master bed. It was a huge bed with four fluffy pillows lying on the side. It was inviting. She imagined how it would be to make love withVikram on this bed. His arms would be wrapped around her. It was evening and sun was peeping inside the room. The curtains were a mix of white and mustard. There was a sleek desk at the side with a white lampshade on it. White flowers spread their fragrance across the room.
There was a cream colored sofa in one corner of the room. Besides the bed a portrait of mountains was hanging. She was impressed with the grandeur of the room and of her first stay abroad. Being the first day there was to be an informal get together in the hotel ballroom. She chose to wear her red gown and let her hair loose.
She must get ready to meet Alda Nicoleman, the company's director in Italy. She was the one who was facilitating the tie-up with an Italian magazine. Maya's company was going to invest in the Italian firm and replicate the magazine in India. The magazine intended to change the way women and men think about women. This was what her boss had briefed her.
She made her way to the ballroom, looking confident and beautiful. She was introduced to Alda.
“Hi!” Alda got up and greeted her warmly. “How are you? How was the journey?”
“Nice.”
“Do you like the hotel?”
“Very much.”
“Meet Dona Maria. She is the editor of the edition here. Dona, this is Maya Dewan. She'll be your counterpart back in India.”
“Hi!” Dona smiled at her.
She was a lovely woman. She had big lips and was wearing red lipstick. The lipstick shined making her lips looking even sexier. She was wearing a black, figure hugging skirt with a dull blue shirt. She was slim, fair with smooth skin.
“Hi!” Maya replied.
“It's nice to see a young woman working on our project. I am very passionate about this magazine. We want to help women across the globe become more independent and confident.”
“That's great,” Maya replied.
Alda looked on, smiling. She had black hair like Indians. Though her skin was a shade fairer than Dona, the red tint on her cheeks were missing. She had slight worn out looks. Maybe she had been working hard, bringing together everybody for the conference.
“This is the annual conference we hold every year to celebrate the success of our magazine. We discuss about the cases where we have tried to help women in distress. We even invite a few of them to describe their experiences. We analyze our sales and revenue as well, so that we can figure out next year's plan,” said Dona. “The idea of calling you here was to give you an idea of the quality of work we maintain. We expect the same from you.”
“Sure!” Maya was already in awe of Dona. She looked to be the dominating type, unlike Alda.
“I have read a couple of online editions of the magazine,” said Maya.
“That's good. How did you like those?” asked Dona.
“Good and touching.”
“Give me one example,” Dona raised her eyebrows as if she wanted to test Maya.
“I remember one about domestic violence against women in Italy. It mentioned that quite a few women in Italy die of attacks and violence from within the family. In fact, it talked about an unidentified corpse of a young woman found on the road.” “Hmmm.” Dona remembered which one it was.
“We have organized this conference so that men and women can discuss this topic and the media's role in making things better,” she continued. Her tone was more accepting. “World needs to be more generous towards women. Countries like Italy, India, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nepal and maybe many more need to really work on the status of women.” Maya nodded.
Once in her room she threw her red gown on the sofa and crawled inside her blanket. It was cold in the room and she liked to sleep naked with the soft blanket touching her body. The fluffy bed and pillows gave a cozy feeling and she let her body feel the softness around her. She picked up her phone and texted Vikram.
“Sometimes I miss you so much that I start feeling I have fallen in love with you.”
“But I miss you all the time.” The reply was quick.
“I thought you were asleep!”
“In your dreams!”
Wordplay, phew!
She decided to sleep early since tomorrow would be a packed day. The next morning Maya went in and took her seat.
“We have organized this talk to reinforce the commitment that we, as a media group, are against crime faced by women across the globe,” said the lead speaker .
“The plan is,” the woman continued, “to provide new ideas about current information and technology, to those professionals responsible for bringing awareness in public to combat heinous crimes against women. I am glad to state that we have many of our business associates and representatives from various countries present here to give their inputs. The mission of our magazine is to highlight problems women face and provide solutions through public platforms.”
She introduced important people that included a social worker, a police official, hacker for online crimes and few victims as well.
“It is sad to see that almost 76% of women have to face humiliation, physical or sexual violence in some shape or form across countries. Even sadder is that most of them face it from friends or people known to them.” She went on to read some gore statistics and case studies.
She gave hair raising accounts of the kind of torture women had to face across the globe. Female foeticide, trafficking for sexual abuse, rapes, murders, domestic violence, illiteracy and what not. Maya felt luckier after listening to all those. A woman survivor told her story of how she got lured into making money by sleeping with few men in Kenya and then she landed as a prostitute in Italy. She was also kidnapped and smuggled and finally thrown on the street. There were days where she could not sleep anywhere. She tried to remain awake, covered herself with newspaper trash. At times when she did sleep she had a knife in her hand. She even narrated the story of two of her best friends. One of them was cruelly killed. She was suffocated and gagged and had 349 stabs on her body. Maybe she was even raped . She went on to say that rape of a prostitute does not garner enough sympathy, but it is as painful as it is for any woman. They were the brutal victims of one of the world's largest crime – human trafficking. There was another woman. She had a beautiful frail, body donning a pair of denims. Her hair touched her shoulders. She looked nervous. “I am Suzzane. I married an Italian man fourteenyears ago. Since then I was treated violently. He used to mistreat me both physically and emotionally. I also had three children with him thinking that it would get better. We were all locked in the house and nobody could help us. He would not let my childrento go to school. He would even beat them up. We all were so scared to talk to anyone. He even banged my head against the wall once and I fainted for almost a minute. I would have killed myself, but for my children I had to be strong. Then I met this young woman who gave me a number of a social center. They really helped me.”
It was disturbing. Are we all part of such cruel human race, she thought to herself. Maya was sitting on her table next to a black woman.
The black woman smiled at her.
“Italian?” she asked.
“No. Indian!”
“English?” she asked.
“Yes.” Maya smiled.
““How come here?” she asked Maya as she lifted her glass of wine. She had sharp features and was dressed very well.
“Associate.”
“First time?” she smiled sarcastically.
'Yes,” Maya replied.
“You?” Maya asked her back.
“Regular, ex Prostitute,” she replied, without emotion.
Maya didn't know how to react. She quietly wondered what that woman was doing here. The woman laughed. “Victim, was trafficked from Nigeria.”
Maya could make sense of it now. Nigeria was also one of the most prominent countries fighting with trafficking issues.
“What you do now?” asked Maya. She was tentative, wondering if she was invading her privacy.
The Nigerian woman laughed.
“A different kind of prostitution!”
“Means?” Maya frowned
“Media,” she winked. The woman got up and excused herself.
Maya was left perplexed.
The conference went on for two more days with unwinding sessions in the evening. Maya foundsome good contacts during these days. The third day Maya spent some time doing local window shopping, and she picked up small mementoes for Nimesh, Reva, Vikram and her parents.She was to leave tomorrow. She wanted to fill herself with adventure. This would be her way to get back at Maya. She smiled.