A Tale of a Woman who Chose to be a Dancer than Selling her Flesh

A girl who was born to a prostitute mother brought up in a red light area and still got inspired enough to opt for dancing as a profession rather than selling her body! This is not a script of a film, but a true story of a girl, she is Uma Das.

Uma was born and brought up in a red light area of Kolkata and had to get married at a very tender age of 16 years. But her married life too was not so fortunate as she had to face regular physical and mental harassment from her husband. A very young Uma gave birth to a boy as well and despite that, the tortures on her did not diminish. The situation compelled her to choose to walk away from her married life and finally, after four years of untiring legal struggle, Uma could, at last, obtain her son’s custody. While facing such hardships in her life, Uma was only 19-years-old and a whole life was lying in front of her. However, Uma did not opt to be a prostitute as heinous crimes like burning a prostitute just because she was bargaining for money with her customer could be witnessed by Uma right in front of her eyes. This incident, rather made Uma even stronger to fight for her survival and make sure that she can earn bread for her and her son with respect.

Here starts a new phase of her life when Uma dared to walk away from the stereotyped life of being a prostitute and chose to become a dance teacher in a dance school. With her struggles for survival and the path she opted for a living, she can rightly be named a role model for most of the women who are reeling under the male dominant society and are scared of stepping out of their homes to attain an identity of their own.

Apart from taking dance classes of girls, Uma also makes sanitary pads in a local factory. Uma’s traits have been able to catch the attention of people across the nation and even world leaders like Foreign minister Hilary Clinton and American actor Ashley Judd have also eulogized the Kolkata lady for her spirit.

Uma, in the true sense, is an instance of women empowerment that has set an unmatchable instance of being a fighter in life and coming out of all odds to lead life happily and respectfully. Hats off to fighters like Uma for such an indomitable spirit.

Also Read: Women Co-operative Societies Flourishing in Tripura: Women Empowerment