Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars (29 page)

‘Next thing I know you’ll run off. And two days after that I’ll see you wearing it around your neck on a gold chain! Tsk. I’m only joking baba, I’m joking. Accha, how is Priya? And Chaddi Bhai? He turned out to be an okay fellow. I thought he had got Priya into dhanda, but in the end he took her out of it. The last time we spoke, she was
mast
: eating, drinking, enjoying. She deserves no less. And Apsara? Have you seen my crazy witch of a mother?’

She’s fine, I said.

‘Of course, she’s same-same! The day she changes the sun won’t rise!’

Sajida apa walked in, ‘Do you girls want to gossip all night, or can we eat dinner as well?’

‘Gossip,’ Leela mouthed off.

Sajida apa snorted. ‘This one is a princess,’ she said grimly. ‘I tell her to wash the dishes, she says, “But my hands will spoil!” I say, “Cook some food,” she says, “But how?” The only thing she knows to do is take a bath. Her bath lasts an hour, and I had to borrow water from the neighbours to cook the meat.’

‘Sorry, Sajida apa,’ said Leela, looking contrite.

‘Sorry doesn’t cook meat beti,’ Sajida apa pointed out. ‘Now come, let’s eat. Chit-chat won’t fill your stomach.’

{ 5 }

‘Move on. Stay away. Leave me alone’

L
eela and Sajida apa could not resolve their differences. Leela was not interested in working in a beauty salon and she wouldn’t help around the house. After a few days, a frustrated Sajida apa asked her to leave. Leela returned to Mira Road to the silence of an empty flat. Her bed was perfectly made, her few bits of furniture covered with dust. The unexpected gift of her mother’s absence filled her with gratitude. Racing down to Paanwala Shyam’s she phoned Priya and asked her to move back in with her immediately.

Priya left Tinkoo. I never saw him again, although on more than one occasion as I drove through Mira Road I thought I saw a boy like him. But in Bombay there were so many boys like him, I could not have been sure.

Leela assumed Apsara had returned to Meerut. But after a few days without news, she decided to ask Paanwala Shyam. He had the ear of Dawood, after all.

‘Has she gone home?’ Leela asked.

‘Arre, what home? She’s gone to Malvani,’ Paanwala Shyam replied.

Apsara had asked him for advice he said, about starting a bijniss, a bijniss with girls. And he had told her what she needed to know, his fondness for Leela notwithstanding, because he was a bijnissman first. Apsara had paid for the information.

Location was paramount, Paanwala Shyam had informed her, and Malvani was already full of brothels. The police wouldn’t care as long as Apsara paid them. ‘Hire a room, then hire a
dalal,’ Paanwala Shyam had said. ‘He supplies the first set of girls. Don’t get fooled, virgins are half a lakh, you can buy a little girl (not a virgin, mind you) for ten thousand and aunties
toh
are
anda
-bread—cheap and best. If you like foreign what is better than Nepal
ka
maal? The delivery system between the two countries is as smooth as butter.’

‘She had an inauspicious start,’ Paanwala Shyam confided. ‘She paid a dalal twenty-five thousand rupees for three girls. But that night itself, the randis ran off. When she opened their suitcases hoping to recover something she could sell, all she found was kachra.’

Leela wasn’t surprised by what her mother had done; she was even a little impressed. ‘She’s never lived on her own!’ she said to me.

She opened a brothel, I reminded her.

Leela shrugged. ‘At her age what option does she have?’

She was pleased that Apsara had stolen what she wanted and fled, confirming the worst she had thought of her.

‘As long as she stays away,’ said Leela. ‘I wish her success.’

Still, Apsara was her blood and when she phoned from her new cellphone, inviting me to visit, it was Leela who urged me to go.

Apsara’s brothel, a fragile tin-roof construction, squatted above a smoky tea shop that saturated the air with the smell of boiling milk and Glucose biscuits. Up the brief but rickety metal stairs was a short corridor thick with kitchen smoke. A dirty white bra and a blue-and-white mop hung from the same nail.

At the end of this corridor was a small room in which Apsara and two of her girls were seated cross-legged on the floor, watching TV. The girls wore nightdresses and glass bangles; they sat upright and had the appearance of wanting to gobble everything before them.

Apsara was leaning against a bolster and her feet rested
comfortably on the lap of one of the girls, who was massaging them. When she saw me, her face broke into a smile. ‘My daughter,’ she said, pretending to wipe away tears. ‘You came!’

Apsara, I said, sternly.

‘You look well, beti,’ she said, motioning for me to sit beside her, poking at one of her girls to make space. ‘But tell, how do I look?’

Well, I had to admit, settling down.

Apsara had lost weight. Instead of her regulation nightgown, she wore a crisp polyester sari, toe-rings, a Timex. She smelt, refreshingly, of the coconut oil that flattened down her hair and not of stale food or gutka. She looked healthy and not a little smug, her absolute comfort in her surroundings suggesting that she was finally in her natural habitat.

Her new wardrobe matched her new persona. She spoke with an authority I hadn’t heard before and it was clear the girls were terrified of her. They called her ‘mummy’. She called them ‘ai ladki’. As in, ‘Ai ladki, if you’re not making me money can you at least make me tea?’ The one who had been massaging her feet, Monu, scampered off to the kitchen. Setting water to boil, she began to sing Apsara’s praises. ‘Mummy is like a goddess,’ she called out breathlessly. ‘She is so pure; she insists we only eat wedge food. Those who want to eat dirty non-wedge must sit outside, she says. And we have to do puja every morning and wash our feet and bottom parts every night. And she lets us take it between our thighs, to save us from children.’

‘This one is a tape recorder,’ sneered Apsara. ‘Anything I say, she repeats.’

Monu blushed.

‘She was raped, was she not?’ said Apsara. ‘So what option but to come into this line? And this one,’ she pointed, ‘goes by Sonu name. She allowed her boyfriend to give her a baby, did she not? So of course he would not marry her. Marry a slut?’

And now they have you, I said.

‘I have taken on the burden,’ agreed Apsara.

Sonu stared at the floor. Her feet were bare, her nails long and varnished red.

‘Tell what else I said,’ Apsara demanded.

Monu peered through the kitchen door, pleased. ‘There is only one goddess we should worship,’ she said. ‘And that is you. And on every festival we should pray to you and give you gifts of money, mithai and saris.’

‘Exactly! And if you don’t, I’ll pluck your eyes out.’ Apsara laughed her rasping laugh. ‘I’m joking, beti. Tell, tell more.’

‘That a woman who sold her daughter to the polis will not hesitate to sell us to ten polis and that a polis only has to see a hole to put it in, and do we know what it’s like to be raped non-stop, and if not, would we like to find out, if so we should try running away.’

Apsara gave me a sideways glance. ‘Okay okay, enough. Now let mummy talk to her guest.’

Sonu dusted herself off and, jumping up, walked into the kitchen. She leaned over the pot bubbling on the stove. Monu moved over, but kept her eyes trained on Apsara.

I asked Apsara how business was. ‘First-class!’ she beamed. ‘God’s grace, after all. Accha, change the channel,
na
. Why we are watching girls dancing nanga-panga? Let’s watch a good serial.’

I did as she requested and then sitting back said, Leela is well. She asked about you.

‘Volume down,’ Apsara called out. Monu scurried over and grabbing the remote control did as asked.

‘Beti,’ Apsara turned to me, ‘can I tell you something?’

I nodded.

‘All my life I’ve lived in someone’s shadow, you know that very well. In the shadow of my father. In the shadow of my husband. In the shadows of my sons, my daughter. What does Apsara want to eat? No one asked. What would Apsara like to watch? No one cared. No one cared, because it’s not human
nature to care for someone dependent on you. But then God, in his mercy, gave me another chance. And look around you, I chose to take it. I have my little bijniss, I make a little money. I’m independent. Well, as independent as an old woman can be! But tell me, how many women my age can say that? Tell me? Most of them die dependant. The clothes they wore, the food they ate, the pillow they slept on, all purchased for them! So do me this favour beti. Tell my daughter everything you saw and all I said. And tell her this: I’m happy. And if she is happy, well then praise God! Finally, we have got what we deserve. Let us forget the past and let each of us, separately, enjoy this present. Tell Leela this for me: Enjoy life, beti. And please, move on. Stay away. Leave me alone.’

I nodded.

She did look happy, I thought. And she deserved to, I supposed. It was not only Leela who had suffered at the hands of Manohar. Leela had suffered terribly, but so had Apsara. And that suffering could only have been compounded by the fact that, unlike Leela, she had never before had the courage to leave.

However Apsara had purchased this new life, at whatever cost, I thought, I hoped she would enjoy it.

Monu brought us tea and as we drank it Apsara touched upon a variety of random subjects: the latest films, the most admirable deity, her favourite chicken recipes. Also, how she was forced to hide her jewellery in a sack of rice to protect it from thieves, and when she said thieves, ‘You know who I mean!’ she said, swivelling her head to glare at Sonu and Monu.

Later, as I was preparing to leave, she thanked me graciously for visiting her and asked me to visit again.

I knew I wouldn’t and I said so.

‘In that case,’ she replied. ‘God bless you, beti. God shower you with blessings.’

Thank you, I said. And good luck to you.

‘Don’t forget me,’ she said.

How could I? I replied, with honesty. You are Leela’s mother.

Apsara nodded thoughtfully.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am Leela’s mother.’

{ 6 }

‘Once these randis come upstairs, their
chamri
is mine’

O
ne weekend Priya spoke of a new boyfriend, an agent who hired bar dancers to perform in clubs in Dubai, and it seemed that it was only the next day when she burst into Leela’s flat with the words they had waited so long to hear: ‘Contract! Leela, contract!’

Leela was puzzled and, as immediately, she was not. She stared at Priya and as Priya nodded they screamed in unison, ‘DUBAI!’

It was a dream come true.

Leela asked if I would accompany her to meet the agent, his name was Sharma. He was older than Priya, he was experienced. He had contacts and, yes, he was vouched for.

By who? I asked.

‘Priya of course!’ Leela replied.

She anticipated no problems, but wanted me to come along. I agreed and we drove together to a small coffee shop in Borivali West, near the National Park.

Priya was waiting for us and she introduced Sharma with pride. Sharma had a head full of grey hair and a mouth full of gold teeth and he stood over six feet tall.

He was delighted to meet Leela, whom he called ‘sister’.

‘The sister of my darling!’ he said, throwing open his arms.

‘The friend of my darling!’ he said to me, offering me his hand. He then wiped his hand on his black sherwani and pushed a couple of chairs towards us. ‘Sit, please sit,’ he said.

Without preamble, he told Leela and Priya that he would
pay them an advance of fifteen thousand rupees and that they would receive Rs. 1.5 lakh for every ninety days of work they did. A single contract generally lasted only ninety days. Once they successfully completed one tour, as he called it, he would set them up on another.

Leela was ecstatic. ‘When should I come to the airport?’

Sharma laughed. ‘I need to arrange a visit visa for you,’ he explained. ‘Please grant me a few days, sister.’

She doesn’t have a passport, I pointed out.

Sharma smiled benignly. ‘No problem. I’ll take care of it.’

How?

‘Arre! Have I wasted my life working for the bhai
log
? Can I not push through two girls? Don’t worry, we have our setting-fitting. We pay the customs people to allow our girls to cross through. Sometimes one of the airports, let us say Bombay, is
garam
because of a terror threat or bhai
log ka
influx-deflux. So we push her through Delhi. She doesn’t have to do anything. The customs person has her name, he has been paid. When he registers who she is he simply looks away. She walks on.
Tum bhi
chup,
main bhi
chup. Same thing in abroad.’

‘See,’ Priya said, pleased. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

Leela agreed. ‘When can we leave?’

Sharma laughed, ‘You girls trust me, but it looks like your friend here does not.’

Priya’s mouth hardened.