7th
We Lost a Friend Today
I never know what to expect when I open my inbox, but it’s almost always interesting.
This morning however, I received a very, very sad e-mail. It was from Sarah Lance regarding one of the women part of the Sari Bari community in Calcutta.
Sari Bari is small business initiative, helping create freedom for women caught up in the Calcutta’s commercial sex-industry. The program offers an alternative means of generating income by training women to stitch and sew gorgeous quits, purses and scarves made out of the cloth from discarded and recycled saris (the traditional clothing worn by Indian women).
It’s pretty imaginative. Incredibly hopeful. The symbolism is rich, filled with restoration—that something which appears used up and tossed aside could be made beautiful and valuable, is the hope and prayer for the lives of the women embraced in the Sari Bari centers.
In her e-mail this morning, Sarah wrote,
I am writing to let you know that the Kolkata community suffered a deep loss today. One of our ladies who has spent three months with us in training was murdered by a customer last night. There will be no justice for her… everyone in the brothels knows who did it but will not speak up. This is a devastating loss for our community. The Sari Bari ladies in particular see themselves in this loss and the realities and violence that some of them still face as they continue to live in the brothels. Please pray for our dear ladies and for Pornima’s family—who would not even come to see her because of the shame of where she was working.
Pornima had a great day at Sari Bari yesterday, there was new hope and belief in the herself that she could have freedom and was a mere day away from completing her first blanket. She will be cremated with her blanket sometime today or tomorrow and will surrounded by the family God gave her three months ago in all of us at Sari Bari.
We are brokenhearted that Pornima will not be able to see the dream for her life fulfilled. We can only hope for freedom in the next.
Jesus have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Sari Bari is one of the most hope-filled initiatives of Word Made Flesh, and as much as we celebrate the hard work and sincere efforts of our community serving in the red-light areas of Calcutta, there are frequent and painful reality checks that compel us to bathe our work in prayer.
In reflection, Sarah wrote a beautiful, and moving, poem for Poornima:
What violence has beset us this day
What violence has beset us this day
Of all days, this day was most unexpected
Most vile, violent and cruel
Because it is the day after hope still lingered in one woman’s heart
Yet it lingers no longer with her end
Today is everyday and the today no one wanted
Today is for weeping over violence
Weeping for freedom lost
Where no freedom can be found
Powerless, fearful silent
Offenders protected
Shame for such injustice is heavy on us all
Three months of freedom tossed like her body
Aside
What violence has beset us this day
We all are her, she was us
Part of us left with her
The violence committed, indignity
Against her, against us all
She flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone
This sister gone
Her fight for freedom was violently wrenched from her grasp,
We will fight on remembering
For Pornima. Completed three months of training at Sari Bari.
Died: Today
