Prostitution is illegal in India. However, it is well known that sprawling red light districts thrive in the middle of dense urban slums. They are thought to house as many as 2 million sex workers.

It is almost as if sex work has become a caste to itself. In well know red light districts such as Kamathipura in Mumbai and Sonagachi in Calcutta, generations of women work side by side, a mother works next to a daughter, a cousin, a nephew. That's two million women (and men) dreaming of other lives, distant realities that probably don't involve selling their bodies to survive. However, also knowing that the economic reality that brings poor women and girls to the sex trade in India, will not change anytime soon.

But what to do with the dreams? The warnings to other sex workers? The hidden talents? The thousand stories of being sold into sex slavery? The sights and sounds of a vibrant, bustling community filled with women and color and smells and flurries of action? These were questions that Indian sex...