Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars by Sonia Faleiro
| Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars by Sonia Faleiro | |
|
| |
| Category: Travel | |
| |
Reviewer: Luci Davin
 | |
| Summary: The story of Leela, a young woman working in a Bombay dance bar. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 240 | Date: August 2011 |
| Publisher: Canongate | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0857861696 | |
|
Share on: | |
| Video:
| |
In 2005, there were 1,500 dance bars in Bombay, so called because they employed women to dance to popular music. Bar dancers could earn a lot of money compared to women in other traditional female jobs outside the sex industry, such as cleaners. Many of them also slept with men for money, but because her job was dancing not sex, a bar dancer could also see herself as infinitely superior to sex workers, whether street prostitutes, those working in brothels or call girls.
Despite the book's subtitle, Beautiful Thing is largely the story of one dancer, Leela, through the eyes of Faleiro who met and befriended her in 2005, shortly before the government shut down and outlawed the dance bars. It is non-fiction but is constructed like a novel, with a variety of interesting characters and a plot, as Leela must deal with a number of changes in her life. Faleiro has changed the names of nearly all the people who appear in the book to protect their identities and their many confidences in her.
Leela was the best paid dancer at the bar where she worked, and at first sight might have seemed to be a glamorous, successful young woman having a lot of fun. However, the story as told by Faleiro is a much darker, sadder one. At 19, Leela had been working as a bar dancer for 6 years already, after running away from home, where her father had sold her to the local police as a sexual plaything. Her story is all too typical, according to Faleiro.
Leela as a real life character is interesting. She has had a tough life, is barely educated and can seem quite shallow, yet at the same time she is obviously bright and resourceful and has managed to find a way to escape her father. I was impressed when reading her story by the extent to which Leela and others in the book were happy to open up to the author.
Faleiro introduces the reader to some of the other women in Leela's life, including her mother Apsara who arrives one day for an extended stay, and her best friend Priya. The 'story' of the book unfolds through a series of conversations. There are also men, such as Shetty, Leela's boss and lover (as well as a married father).
Later in 2005, a change in the law outlawed Bombay's dance bars and many closed down – Leela lost her job and had to look for a new way of making a living.
I often worry that books about sex workers may be exploitative and voyeuristic, but this doesn't feel like that. Faleiro seems to be concerned with telling her subjects' stories, bringing their situation to life, and this is the story of a human being who happens to be in that line of work. The book is about Leela's day to day life, not about her erotic dancing or her other ways of earning a living. It is often shocking, not for descriptions of sex work, but for its accounts of exploitation.
Faleiro has a gift for empathy and engagement with her subjects which makes her writing really compelling. This book is also beautifully written, moving and thought provoking. I shut the book wanting to know what has become of Leela, her hopes and dreams.
Thank you to Canongate for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
I first came across Faleiro's writing in her contribution to Ox Travels by Michael Palin, an anthology of travel writing. Or try The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New India by Siddhartha Deb.
Please share on: 
Facebook, 
Twitter and
Instagram
You can read more book reviews or buy Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars by Sonia Faleiro at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars by Sonia Faleiro at Amazon.com.
Comments
Like to comment on this review?
Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.
