One day he came to me and said he had fallen in love with a boy who sold pickles. In my naivety I assumed a boy of my age - but no this child was just twelve. To my enduring shame I said nothing, did nothing and continued to be used as an excuse for him to go and see the boy, He had brothers and a sister - only ten and already 'sold' to a German who came once a year for his pleasure - he had been coming to Calcutta since she was six.
As I write this I feel sick. I know children can be sexually active - I was 14 when I lost my virginity - but this, this was something else entirely.
The parents used to send the children to where they knew we were having lunch and they would arrive with jars of balichow and mango chutney for which they were paid hundreds of rupees. It was sickening and horrid and I did nothing- until one day I told Mum. She told my friend's employer who she knew very well and they lay down the law in no uncertain terms. My friend moved in with his boss and began slowly to accept homosexuality as normal and sex with children as very wrong. We didn't have names like pedophiles then and I hope and believe my friend was not one - all his relationships since have been with grown men.
But I have such a feeling of guilt and anger at being used -I could have helped those children, somehow. We never saw them again but I was told the oldest boy and the little girl had been 'adopted' and taken to Germany. God knows what sort of a life they had.
That's my real burden that I must carry - all that is takes for evil for flourish is for a good man/woman to stand by and say nothing and I did.
I have nothing more to say - somehow, someday I will be able to forgive myself - until then I carry this burden of guilt. They were children and they only want to please, their parents, the nice man buying the jam - what kind of hell did I sit passively by and say nothing about?
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