" A courtesan would receive years of training in literature, etiquette, dance and music before she was

allowed to make her first public appearance. Courtesans have played quite a huge role in enriching

our country’s traditions in music and art, you know. And sexuality – that too was considered an art,

an ancient art…”

What did it mean for the courtesans to have to make themselves available to the colonizer? To lay

their bodies open to sex, to medical inspection, to laws? And all this to keep the military virile and

marching towards the expansion of Empire! What happened to the women afterwards, that’s what I

want to know! In fact, I don’t think it was very different from slavery in America – Black women

eroticized, abused, discarded. No, the real story must have been far, far worse. Before the British,

after the British. "

― , The Courtesans of Karim Street