L isten, listen. Maybe you will learn something useful. After all, in this world of men if one woman doesn't help another, we will all suffer.
Bar dancer Leela to a beautician in Sonia Faleiro's “Beautiful Thing: Inside The Secret World Of Bombay's Dance Bars”
Leela should know. In her world, fathers rent out their daughters' bodies to other men. The police are child rapists the law cannot touch. To be born in a “khandani” family means to participate in a tradition by which the plainer sister becomes a householder while the beautiful one dances in the house of the zamindar and in “hotils” until she reaches puberty, when her parents sell her to the highest bidder.
Searing truths leap out from the pages of Sonia Faleiro's “Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars” (Penguin), released early this month. But what leaps further is Leela's unquenchable spirit. She is a woman of supreme optimism refusing to be cowed down by her fate — even as she believes destiny is the ultimate king. “Maybe with time our luck will change for the better?” she says to the author at one point.
If Leela were a fictional creation, we would laud Faleiro for gifting literature an unforgettable character. But Leela is real, as are her fellow bar dancers, as well as the eunuchs, the street side sex workers, the bar owners and pimps and brothel madams that people this award winning journalist's book.
Products of a society so inherently polite it created the suffix ‘ji' for a person not related to you and not necessarily older than you but to whom you have to show respect. Products of a society that wears its morality on its sleeve but preys on the weak under cover of darkness.
In that darkness, women like Leela lit their own way, surviving, fighting, but with their sense of fun and independence intact despite the blows destiny dealt them. Until the moral sleeve tried to wipe them out. After the initial headlines, the closure of Mumbai's dance bars became one more piece of old news. But Faleiro, an award winning journalist, spent three years visiting Leela and her friends, researching a universe that to her — as to millions of other middle class Indians — had so far been only as visible as Bollywood's fantasised versions could make it.
In this email interview, the author talks about the experience of writing the book. Faleiro calls it an act of ego to think her book could influence socio-political outcomes. And surely solutions are not easily to be found. But it is also true that to ignore “Beautiful Thing” too would be a supreme act of ego. Excerpts from the interview:
Did the girls' traumatic histories trouble your sense of balance as a journalist?
It's self evident that I was deeply moved by everything I saw, and that I, like anyone in my position, suffered feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. I have two responsibilities as a reporter. One, towards my subject, to portray them accurately on the terms discussed with them at the onset. And two, towards my readers.
I must honour both responsibilities, and the way to do so is to be a careful observer, but one whose presence does not in any significant way change what would otherwise have been. Again however, responsibility shouldn't come at the expense of humanity and readers of the book will be aware of my attempts to help Leela in her time of distress.
Newspapers may not be interested in printing stories of people who are almost invisible to their readership, but a book has a longer life. Have you any hopes/thoughts on what can be its effect?
It seems a huge act of ego to presume that a book will change someone's life. In the past, people have asked of how they could contribute to bringing change to the life of a marginalised person I've written about, and I was able point them towards the appropriate person or organisation. But the issue here isn't small sums of money. What we're talking about is a change in what we see and how we see it.
This book asks that we see the humanity of not just bar dancers but of all people marginalised, abused and discarded. I'm a writer and I've done the best I could. But change is a collective responsibility and for true change we—writers, reporters, politicians, citizens—must all do our job, fulfil our citizenship responsibilities if we want to see a difference. So what I wish from this book is that people will see a certain kind of person differently. Because seeing is the first step towards understanding.
While there is no uncomplicated solution to the problems of the people whose lives you describe, what do you think can be starting points, having spent years closely interacting them?
I'm not comfortable offering policy prescription — there are people whose job it is to do this and they would know best. But certainly education for women and skill training is important. We also need to understand that irrespective of what a person chooses to do, if they're adults, and what they're doing is legal, their decision must be respected.
A woman cannot be subjected to ostracism, assault or violence just because a few of us disagree with how she chooses to support herself and her family.
Sajida Apa could not make a dent with Leela, because Leela wasn't attracted to learning beautician's skills or helping around the house. Does this reflect a gap between what NGO representatives want to do for the girls and what the girls themselves want? Do you think it happens because usually the NGO folks are from more privileged backgrounds and the girls feel they can't really understand them?
I think Leela simply wasn't comfortable working with those outside her line, and that had something to do with her snub of Sajida apa. They couldn't establish a rapport. At the same time, she also felt judged, which of course she was. Lastly, Leela was used to earning well and she truly believed that it was better to earn nothing than to earn what she perceived of as negligible sums of money.
Sometimes you mention your “notebook-pencil”, while at others it seems the conversations reported are in casual circumstances. How did you maintain accuracy?
I took notes in the moment, when it was possible to do so. But in many circumstances, such as at the birthday party in Kamthipura or at Night Lovers, it wasn't possible to take notes, and so instead I wrote an obsessive amount when I returned home. I must have filled dozens of notebooks over those three years of research.
Your reproduction of the manner of speaking of Leela, Priya, Apsara and various ‘kustomers' is evocative. Which language did you converse in?
Hindi primarily. But Leela knew some English that she had learnt from watching TV shows, and she liked to practice on me. In Bombay, many English words and phrases have become a part of conversational language, and these are reflected in the text in conversations I had with Apsara, for example. Aunty spoke to me in English, and Tinkoo liked to as well.
Have you any idea what happened to Leela and Priya in Dubai?
I can only guess.
