'People-work'

Notions of sexual morality and decency can be divisive externalities in an otherwise value driven discussion on human rights.  Here is how. AmnestyInternational 's  call for decriminalisation of sexwork has yet again pried open the divisions between the women’s empowerment movements around the world. Abolitionists have long argued that sexwork is not only demeaning for women in and of itself, but worse, it leads to trafficking of women and girls and hence should be abolished. Sexworker movements, on the other hand, have hailed the Amnesty policy as a hard won victory. This is a  debate  where notions of morality and decency clash for primacy over justiciable Rights.  The beleagured battleground seems to be the sexworker's identity, her sexuality, her voice and her agency.  

It is haloed  moment when a child, a small notebook in hand, takes her shoes off at the door and enters the room of her Guru, her music teacher. She is very likely in a space that has music particles in the air, notes swung through the octaves of imagination and many hours of grinding riyaaz one note at a time till the sound of each one fuses with the singer. Sound becomes prayer. She enters the habitation of prayers as she steps into the space of her Guru. Learning music used to be a common in small town households in India when we were growing up in the 70s and 80s. Almost everyone I knew used to be enrolled for learning some kind of music - Hindustani classical, carnatic classical, Indian or westerm instruments, and so on. Parents would make time to ensure kids were ferried to classes being held somewhere in the neighborhood. It was a quasi social gathering where parents met other parents and shared notes, while their children sat infront of the Guru, and imbib...