Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars (31 page)

‘So in those ten days we can do anything we like?’ Leela asked.

‘Anything,’ Sharma replied, magnanimously. ‘Your body is your own after all. Go meet your kustomers, get them to bathe
you in dirhams, to buy presents for you, your mummy and your friends, as you wish.’

Priya was pleased. ‘Like before.’

She reached out for Leela’s hand. Leela flashed her a smile. I hadn’t see her so happy in a long time.

‘Touch up?’ she said.

The girls reached for their handbags and walked away clasping each other tightly around the waist.

Sharma watched them with open interest. He turned his face towards mine. I thought he was going to ask if I wanted a cup of coffee.

‘One thing,’ he said. ‘One thing I didn’t mention.’

What’s that? I asked.

‘Just this.
Ki
once these randis come upstairs, their
chamri
belongs to me.’

I stared. You will own them? Is that what you’re saying?

‘Own?’ said Sharma sitting up. ‘Is that what you call bijniss? Arre madam, ghoda
ghas se dosti karega to khayega kya
? If a horse befriends the grass what will he eat? This is not ownership, Soniaji; this is life.’

Sharma sighed. ‘These Dubai trips, they last two years, max three. The first time your Leela sleeps with her kustomer he will give her a bracelet. After that she will get a chain. After that, cash. But after that all she will get is talk. Because once your Leela becomes familiar, as familiar as a wife, a girlfriend, she will get nothing, exact as a wife or girlfriend. And once her kustomer loses interest, naturals, so will I. That is naturals. Then no more Dubai for your Leela. So what will your Leela do? No, no, let me tell you. Let me tell you because I have seen this for fifteen years. Fifteen years, with my own eyes! Maybe she’s told you she wants to open a booty parlour, do fashion? Am I right? Or did she say, “I’ll try my luck in films”? Or wait, did she say, “I want to find a good man”? Right? But let me tell
you what will really happen. Once your Leela is no longer welcome in Dubai, she will be at a loss. How to earn? How to eat? She is old now, after all. So this is what she will do: she will invest whatever money her mother hasn’t stolen from her into a flat. She will spend two, maybe three, lakhs, buy a place in Mira Road, Bhayander, Thane, someplace like that. And with that flat, she will get girls into this line. Unless she has a daughter. If a kustomer gives her a daughter she is set. She will sell her daughter, even if she is her only child, her only family, because her mother sold her and who is her daughter to deserve better?’

Just because it’s true for many bar dancers doesn’t mean it will be true for Leela, I said. Leela may want something else.

Sharma smiled.

The girls were walking back. Priya was on her cellphone, Leela looked ahead. She raised her right hand and, winking, fluttered it at me.

Hello?

Bye bye?

‘True fact,’ Sharma was saying. ‘Leela may want something else.’

He leaned back and, yawning, stretched his hands above his head. ‘Leela may want something else. But who will permit Leela what she wants?’

{ 7 }

‘Tell me, do you see it?’

L
eela reminded me she was going abroad and asked if I would drive her to the airport. She was flying with Priya to Delhi and they would make their onward journey with a friend of Sharma’s, ‘to be safe’. She had no second thoughts, she said. Sharma had been trying to impress me into believing he was a big don. He was no Bada Don. He was a khabru, a cunt, a failed crossing away from being a chamar chor. Leela and Priya had saved his career! She knew the Sharmas of the world. They talked fast and loose. As though anyone could own her—her! Remember, she said gently, a bar dancer’s game is
lootna
, kustomer
ko
bewakuf
banana
. And a kustomer was any man she would meet, don’t take tension.

You’re not going to Night Lovers, I said. In Dubai they may do things differently.

‘Don’t worry,’ she insisted. ‘I’ll be in touch, God promise. Accha, I’ll send you a postcard. I’ll go to Wild Wadi and be
mast
enough for us both. I’ll go to Jumeirah Beach! I’ll do shopping, so much shopping I’ll do! I’ll eat gold!’

Okay, I said.

Leela shook her head as though to say, ‘Will you never learn?’

She held out her hand. ‘Come here. Look at me.’

I obliged.

Leela had lost weight, she was thinner than when we had first met. But she appeared small too, diminished.

‘Look properly,’ she insisted, standing still.

Leela patted her hair away from her face and flashed me a smile.

What am I looking for? I asked.

‘Fear,’ she said.

‘Tell me, do you see it?’

I didn’t have to think twice.

No, I said. I don’t think I ever have.

Acknowledgements

T
his is a work of non-fiction, researched and written over a period of five years. To understand the world of the bar dancers I conducted hundreds of interviews across Bombay. Among the people I met with were bar dancers, bar owners, customers, stewards, waiters, sex workers, hijras, brothel madams, gangsters, policemen of all ranks from the then commissioner of police to constables on the street, politicians, lawyers representing both the bar dancers and the bar owners in their lawsuit against the State of Maharashtra, NGO workers, media persons and the families of women working in the bar line. To protect the identity of the people involved, I have, with the exception of public figures, changed all names and identifying characteristics of people and places. While I was present for most of the events described in this book, some dialogue and characters were reconstructed.

I would like to dedicate this book to the people who gave me their time and shared with me their stories. This is for you. Thank you.

I consulted with numerous people during the writing of this book, and in particular I’d like to thank Kamlesh Singh, Deepak Rao, Deepti Priya Mehrotra, Manjit Singh Sethi, Laxminarayan Tripathi, Penny Richards, Ashish Khetan, Sandeep Pendse, Alok Gupta, Vikram Doctor and Veena Gowda. To Ravi Singh and Meru Gokhale—I couldn’t have asked for more involved and painstaking editors; thank you so much. To my early readers Ulrik McKnight, Chiki Sarkar and Amit Varma; to Prabha Desai
and her indefatigable staff at the Sanmitra Trust (Goregaon and Malvani), to Nikita Lalwani, Ulla McKnight, Sanjiv Valsan and Negar Akhavi, my deepest thanks. To Shobhaa Dé, this was your idea: Thank you. Gregory David Roberts, thank you for your encouragement and support; it means so much. And to my agent Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency, for her enthusiasm and support, all my thanks.