In India, Sex on the Beach Comes with a Price Tag

Posted on December 12, 2009, by Hanna Ingber Win, under India, International.

Here is my second “Reporter’s Notebook” for GlobalPost. It’s about prostitutes and cocktails at Juhu Beach.

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.

Continue reading here.

Follow me on Twitter here.

See Also:

• Matheran: A Retreat from Mumbai Madness
• Mumbai Is Hard, Until It’s Not
• Mumbai Parsis divided on intermarriage
• Dharavi’s varied texture of life
• Mumbai Arrival: Sweet Tea, Noisy Rickshaws and New Friends

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• About Hanna

  

  Hanna is GlobalPost's Breaking News and Social Media Editor. She recently returned to the U.S. after spending two years reporting from Mumbai. Hanna was the founding World Editor of the Huffington Post. Follow her on Twitter and subscribe to her on Facebook.

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