The Blue Notebook is the tragic tale of Batuk, a beautiful Indian girl sold into prostitution by her poor rural family at the age of nine. After her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder, she is taken to work on the Common Street of Mumbai, kept in a cage next to other child prostitutes, including her friend Puneet, a girl-boy who is the most valuable of all.
Upon pilfering a dropped pencil from her boss, the immense Mamaki or “Hippopotamus”, Batuk, miraculously literate followed a protracted hospital stay due to TB, begins to record her life, firstly with the pencil in a blue notebook, followed by a variety of other writing materials. Batuk’s writing is a way for her to reclaim part of her life and keep it secret within herself. “And so I look within myself and assemble myself in words,” she writes. “I take the words that are my thoughts and dreams and hide them behind the dark shadow of my kidney… I craft the words of merriment and sadness (they are the same) into a pyramid and place it under my skin so I can touch it whenever I need to know where my feelings are.”
Repeatedly throughout her writing Batuk descends into a world of fantasy to escape from the grim realities around her. Some of these fantasies she acknowledges that she knows are false, such as the euphemism of “sweetcake” for the act of sex and the references to herself as a “princess” and her cage as a magnificently decorated “throne”: “I am not deranged, but there are countless days I wish I were.” However, there are other times when it seems that her senses are overwhelmed and she no longer knows what is reality and what is imagination, particularly with the tiger skin in the hotel penthouse she is later taken to.
As you delve deeper into the world of Batuk, particularly during the scenes that ensue in the hotel penthouse, it is hard not to hope that as this is a work of fiction, occurrences like this don’t really happen in the world. However, it is hard to ignore the stark truth and the facts about child prostitution in many parts of the world, including India. And whilst Batuk’s story may be fictional, it was inspired by the author’s sighting, whilst investigating child labour for the UN, of a street girl, “the girl in the pink sari with the rainbow trim”, in such a street Mumbai writing intently in a notebook.
A mesmerizing story despite the heartbreaking tale that it tells, The Blue Notebook brings a touching human face to the sad reality of child prostitution. Along with the benefits that it will bring through the donation of part of its proceeds to the International and National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children, hopefully this book will also raise people’s awareness and stop us from deluding ourselves that such issues don’t exist.
REVIEWER BIO:
An avid rea
der as long as she can remember, Shandos Cleaver has most recently worked as an IT programmer and enjoys art festivals, wine tasting, books that let her experience life all over the world and a healthy addiction to Twitter (@scleaver).
