How Delhi came to have Sonu Punjaban on speed dial

There isn’t much on Google Images that confirms all that you read in the scores of links that surface when you search ‘Sonu Punjaban’ on the internet.

A prostitute-turned-pimp who ran a highly networked sex racket; a hedonist who flitted from man to man, each a bigger criminal that the other; a 30-year-old mother of an 8-year-old son who loved a ‘lavish lifestyle’ and has had murder charges slapped against her.

Sonu Punjaban, alias Geeta Arora is the girl in a pink sweater on the internet. Uncombed, streaked hair pulled back in a knot, sharp features set in an expression of disinterest, just occasionally broken by amusement or irritation in the series of pictures on the net.

Sonu Punjaban’s pictures exude the kind of nonchalance which makes criminals weirdly engaging. Probably because it comes with the pre-knowledge of a story worth a Bollywood masala movie.

Lady and a Pimp published by the Open magazine profiles Sonu Punjaban who was arrested during a sting operation early last year, and traces her journey to acquiring the filmi pseudonym under which she allegedly ran a vast sex racket. The story, as recounted by the police statement that Punjaban gave, interviews with her mother, and some people who accompanied her during trials, points at a combination of factors as responsible for her entry into sex trade. While, later in the story, her mother does paint a picture of a quintessential woman pushed to the brink, choosing life over death; the story relates Punjaban’s penchant for ‘dangerous living’ and relationships with three lovers, all criminals felled by the police, as something that finally led her to prostitution and alleged girl-running.

However opposed to what an Indo-Canadian newspaper The Link says about Punjaban, a story published by Mint , recognizes the shrewd business head that Punjaban was blessed with. It traces how she zeroed in on the emerging middle class in Delhi, not super-rich, but people with expendable income and the convenience of being away from home.

Punjaban, according to the Mint report, scrupulously operated within that class and catered to its sensibilities. Like the Open magazine notes, her girls couldn’t compete with high class escorts adept at society drinking and conversations, but were well turned out and well-groomed – something that a lot of middle class men are taken in by.

The Open article ends with Punjaban’s dramatic claim: “Her lover is gone. Her son would be a teenager then. A childhood lost and a youth spent… is MCOCA justified in her case when others are walking free?” Like with everything else about Punjaban, this divides the reader - is she a victim demanding an audience or just another master of her trade?