For far too long the 'population problem' in India has been seen from the point of view of the policy and statistics of population growth, focusing on the control of fertility without reference to poor women and their needs. In this book, a hundred women from Calcutta's slums talk directly about their sexual and birth control experiences. As the stories accumulate, we get a picture of these women's lives that are frighteningly bare of choice. The book asks how women's income-earning capacities as well as those of their men, and their status in their families affect their social and sexual autonomy. How does religion influence their birth control choices? Has the women's movement been able to address the concerns of poor illiterate or semi-illiterate women?