Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars (12 page)

Sure enough, Priya reported that her customer was a generous man. Early on he’d slipped her a plastic packet, inside which was a bundle of one hundred rupee notes tied with string. ‘He had no hesitation,’ recounted Priya. ‘Ration, kapda, shopping; whatever I wanted he said I could have. I had only to ask.’

I asked Priya if she would introduce me. Although I’d met a couple of Leela’s customers and seen others outside Night Lovers, she always brushed off my attempts to speak to them at length. This was bijniss, she said, best not to get involved. I thought Leela meant it was
her
business and I should stay out of that part of her life. But I soon wondered if her reluctance stemmed from the fact that she didn’t wish to spend any more time with customers than was necessary, or lucrative.

Leela’s disdain for her customers was clear to them. When I attempted small talk, these men, often middle-aged, and seemingly educated and employed, would answer politely enough. But as soon as Leela joined the conversation, they lost all
confidence. One got so nervous he began to answer my questions in monosyllables of ‘
Ji
’. Yes.

As in, how long have you known Leela?

‘Ji.’

How often do you come here?

‘Ji.’

Although Leela exercised every nakhra she had acquired through experience and copied from films, she dropped all pretences once she was sure a customer had fallen for her. Then it was for him to pursue her, for him to keep her happy. And if he didn’t, well then, someone else would. Someone would always be willing to pay for Leela’s attention, Leela said. To give her money even if it was money only for a smile.

‘They think I dance for them,’ she would say. ‘But really, they dance for me.’

Leela was immovable on the subject and so I thought I would try my luck with Priya.

To my great surprise, she acquiesced. ‘Why not?’ she shrugged. ‘Come eat with us at Pure Wedge. But don’t you bring your notebook-pencil. Kustomer comes from a good family.’

The manager of Pure Vegetarian didn’t recognize me. He had, after all, been in a drunken stupor when we first met. He nodded briefly as I walked past him towards Priya, who was seated, strategically, under the air conditioning.

Priya’s customer reminded me of a kindly uncle—he was short, fat and worried-looking. He wore glasses with old-fashioned, round frames and from his neck hung a gold pendant in the shape of an ‘Om’.

I could imagine what was going through his mind—did all booties come with as much baggage as Priya? She must talk incessantly about herself, I thought with a smile. About Leela, and, mercilessly, about Raj. She had taken that first gift of money as indication that the customer’s wallet was bottomless and I
imagined she inserted a demand for a gift or a shopping treat into every conversation. If the customer demurred, she would caress his face and murmur, ‘Janu, you know at night I dream only of you.’

His resistance would melt quickly.

By now even I knew Priya’s lines and I would sometimes wonder how any man could fall for them—they were so clearly filched from the Bollywood films she favoured. But these admittedly disloyal thoughts evaporated when I saw her. Then I understood what Rumi had warned of, when he spoke of the intoxicating power of beauty.

Priya’s customer stood up; he brought his hands together in a polite namaste.

‘My friend,’ said Priya with a smirk.

‘My kustomer,’ she said to me, jabbing in his direction.

To thank Priya for doing me this favour I had worn make-up. And whatever little jewellery I possessed. This pleased Priya, who was a natural aesthete, and she took me by my hand and made me sit beside her. ‘You’re looking smart,’ she said, kindly.

‘Yes,’ agreed the customer politely. ‘Just like Abu Salem’s girl.’

Abu Salem was one of the underworld’s most dreaded gangsters. His girlfriend, Monica Bedi, had been a B-grade actress before she gave up her career to live with him. Later that year they would be extradited from Portugal and jailed.

‘Like you know Abu Salem,’ Priya sneered. ‘Or Monica! What do you know of Monica Bedi? As if you know anyone!’

‘Nothing,’ agreed the customer hastily. ‘No one. It’s just you said Soniaji was looking smart-
si
, no? I agree!’

‘And the best comparison you could come up with was Monica Bedi? Are you trying to make insult of my friend?’

‘No! No! It’s just that . . .’ the customer sat back with a thump. He began to nod his head like a helpless pendulum, ‘
Chalega,
hahn,’ he surrendered, lapsing into silence.

I’m not offended, I said. I’m sure Monica is lovely.

‘Loverly-shoverly,’ grumbled Priya. ‘She was in fillums; do you
at least know that? What a chance she had yaar! And she gave it up to run off with a don. A donkey has more shit than that whore has brains! And what for did she do it all? The next time she’ll be in a fillum it will be a fillum on how she ended in lock-up!’

A waiter with a creased shirt-front sidled up to us. Plucking a pen from behind his ear, he began to tap it impatiently against the grubby little notepad in his hand.

Priya didn’t bother with the menu. ‘One jeera rice,’ she commanded. ‘One black dal. And palak paneer. Also raita. And naan, three piece hahn. And one sweet corn, hot-hot.’ She looked from her customer to me. ‘And you two, what will you two have?’

At least Priya and her customer had one thing in common. They loved food. Priya wasn’t joking when she said her preferred fare was ‘wedge, non-wedge, Chinese, Mughlai, Punjabi and fish’. When the food arrived, the customer served himself first, tucked his elbows firmly into the table, and dived in. Neither he nor Priya spoke for the next twenty minutes.

I’m interested in the lives of bar dancers, I finally said.

‘Yes,’ nodded the customer. ‘Priyaji told to me.’

I don’t get a chance to speak with many customers.

‘Most are illiterate!’

That’s why I wanted to meet you. Priya told me how articulate you are.

The customer goggled.

Priya shovelled rice into her mouth.

How did you meet? I asked.

‘In Rassbery,’ replied the customer.

‘In Rassbery!’ Priya’s head shot up. ‘Is that all you can say?’

‘In Rassbery, last Saturday of two months ago, it was evening time around 9 p.m. You were wearing a pink lehenga-choli with a ribbon in your hair and kajal in your eyes and you did a solo to
Mere hathon mein nau nau chudiyan hain
for which I’d made a special request, and when I asked your name you said,
“Aishwarya,” and when I said, “so bootiful you are,” and gave you five hundred rupees, you smiled at me.’

‘And then?’ said Priya, pleased.

‘Then I held out more money and when you took it from me I said, “Is your name Aishwarya because you look like Aishwarya Rai?” And you laughed and, oh, how happy that made me!’

‘And then?’

‘Then I stayed and stayed, and I stayed until your manager sahib came up to me and said, “Sirji, why not return tomorrow? If we stay open a minute longer the ‘polis’ will knock for hafta.” So I left. But I returned the next day, 3 p.m. sharp. I said to myself, I own my own “vine” shop right here on Mira Road and I have leased two more in Thane district. I work like a Bihari! Am I not entitled to some relaxation? So, no shop. I wore a new shirt, I rubbed some of my son’s hair cream on my head, I sprayed perfume under my arms and yes, Priya, I came to you.’

‘And again manager “aksed” you to leave because you were the last one sitting,’ crowed Priya.

‘Yes,’ admitted the customer. ‘I watched you from 3 p.m. until 3 a.m. I watched you even after you stopped dancing and I watched as you walked out of the door. Tell me, did you like me?’

‘Huh!’ Priya tossed her head. ‘Like I’m hungry for love!’

‘Did you like me?’

‘What makes you aks that? Did I let you touch my finger? Not even when you gave me money did I let you touch an inch of me.’

‘So? So, Priya?’

There was something determined about the customer’s expression.

Priya held his gaze for a couple of seconds and then, without blinking, showed her talent. Wiping her hand on a napkin, she reached across the table and began to caress the customer’s face. ‘Janu,’ she cooed. ‘Would I be sitting here if I didn’t love you?
Would I be sitting here if I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life eating from the same plate as you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Janu, are you trying to tear my heart into small-small pieces?’

The customer waggled his hand. ‘I don’t know!’

‘
Chalo
fine!’ Priya pushed her plate away. It was almost empty. ‘Since you doubt my love I have no reason to sit here. Come Sonia, come let’s go from here. Might as well throw myself into a well! Should I do that? No response! Okay, done! No, wait! See this knife? Watch me slit my throat with it! After all, what use do I have of a life in which I’m not loved?’

She grabbed the knife in one hand, and my hand in the other, and made a great rustling show of getting up. Reluctantly, I followed.

‘No!’

‘No what?’

‘No, don’t go,’ pleaded the customer. ‘Please don’t go,’ he cried.

‘Please cheeze!’

‘Please Priya, I was only joking.’

Priya pushed the knife towards me and began dusting herself off like she was dusting off the customer’s ‘joke’. Sitting down, she switched on a terrifying glare.

‘And then?’ she demanded.

The customer didn’t hold back. ‘And then I returned home to my wife and first I thought, “How can I put her through this?” I’ll be franks with you Soniaji—Priyaji was not the first woman I fell in love with after I married. There was another woman, also a bar dancer, her name was Pinkyji, Pinky Tandonji, and we were so much in love I forgot myself—she would sleep with me in my bedroom and my wife and son would sleep on the sofa. I forgot myself I tell you, and for what? She was a dayan! How much she stole! From me, from my wife’s purse!’ He hissed, ‘I caught her stealing from my son’s toy box!’

Priya sighed. ‘Some women are so
neech
.’ Base.

‘Yes,’ nodded the customer. ‘But I too was naïve. I should have taken her straight to the station but my wife said, “It doesn’t matter, at least you’ve come to your senses, and now she’s gone what for to file a complaint and make a show for the neighbours?”’

‘Such a good wife you have.’

‘She’s one in a thousand.’

‘She’s a diamond
na
?’

‘She’s pure of heart.’

‘I wish I was like her, janu . . .’

‘Priya,’ said the customer tenderly, reaching for her hand. ‘She may be my diamond, my darling. But you, you are my diamond, my emerald, my ruby. You are my one billion biscuits of gold. You are . . . you are my . . . my Kohinoor!’ He sniggered. ‘Priya, you’re the Kohinoor the British couldn’t steal. Huh, they stole our freedom, Priya, but they couldn’t steal you, my princess!’

He was pleased. Now here’s why a booty like Priya was with a beast like him. Further proof needed? He didn’t think so.

Priya smirked. ‘Janu . . . Keep control in front of Soniaji.’

You were saying something about not wanting to hurt your wife? I said.

‘I
don’t
want to hurt my wife,’ the customer said vigorously. ‘But arre, neither do I want to be hurt! Listen, I grew up outside Jaipur, Rajasthan, in a small village. We had no dance bars, no vine shops, no Pure Wedge, no girls like Priya. We barely saw women! Why, I couldn’t dream that I would, one day, live in Bombay city. Might as well have dreamt of going to US! My father owned a small laundry
ki dukaan
; my mother was a housewife in
ghoonghat
. Growing up we didn’t have a radio, never mind TV. We played marbles, grazed animals, counted monkeys, sheep, camels, parakeets, squirrels. Once in a while I would think about what I would become. I could take over father’s dukaan, but only if my older brothers weren’t interested.
Or I could start my own bijniss. What sort of bijniss, you’ll ask? Father’s dukaan was in the nearest town and so too Balaji’s Photo Studio and Raj’s Cycle Store and Golu’s Tikiya Bhandar. Following? Like every boy in my village my ambition too was to one day own a shop I could name for myself, it didn’t matter what I sold. And I wanted to get married because to marry meant I had achieved something. I was a man who could look after a family. Then I turned eighteen and my parents arranged my marriage. That first night I asked my wife, “What will make you happy?” She replied, “I’m as happy as God wished me to be.” But I said, “No, tell me, what will make you happy?” and she said, “What will make me happy is a piece of gold for every year you are happy with me.” Then I said, “What else?” and she said, “That will make me happy as can be. What else could I ask for?” But I asked her again and finally she said to me, “If you were to have a shop and to name that shop after me the way my best friend’s husband named Pinky STD-PCO after her, that would make me very happy indeed.”’

‘Understanding?’

Not quite, I admitted.

‘I’m saying that because I grew up in a small village, my ambitions too were small. All I wanted was to own a shop and to name that shop after me. And because my wife grew up in that same small village she too had the same small ambitions. Then we came to Bombay. I joined the merchant navy, briefly. I started my own bijniss. So now I have not just one shop but many, and I have a house and land. Why? Because my children must have a better childhood than I did—of playing marbles and counting goats. But what does my wife want? Tell? First chance she gets she scoops them up and runs home! She forces them to live in my father’s house which has no toilet, nothing, why when we married my father took a big tin of paint and painted the invitation on the outer wall of our room: “You are invited to bless my son and future daughter-in-law on so and so date at so and so time, wedge
dinner will be served.” That is the life my wife wants for herself and for our children.’