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Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars
Sonia Faleiro was a reporter in search of a story when she met Leela, a beautiful and charismatic bar dancer with a story to tell.
Leela introduced Sonia to the underworld of Bombay’s dance bars: a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, sex and violence, of customers and gangsters, of police, prostitutes and pimps.
When an ambitious politician cashed in on a tide of false morality and had Bombay’s dance bars wiped out, Leela’s proud independence faced its greatest test. In a city where almost everyone is certain that someone, somewhere, is worse off than them, she fights to survive, and to win.
Beautiful Thing, one of the most original works of non-fiction from India in years, is a vivid and intimate portrait of one reporter’s journey into the dark, pulsating and ultimately damaged soul of Bombay.
Leela introduced Sonia to the underworld of Bombay’s dance bars: a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, sex and violence, of customers and gangsters, of police, prostitutes and pimps.
When an ambitious politician cashed in on a tide of false morality and had Bombay’s dance bars wiped out, Leela’s proud independence faced its greatest test. In a city where almost everyone is certain that someone, somewhere, is worse off than them, she fights to survive, and to win.
Beautiful Thing, one of the most original works of non-fiction from India in years, is a vivid and intimate portrait of one reporter’s journey into the dark, pulsating and ultimately damaged soul of Bombay.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 2010
76 people are currently reading
1944 people want to read
About the author
Sonia Faleiro
11 books179 followersSonia Faleiro is the author of Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars and a novella, The Girl. Her new book, The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing will be published in 2021.
The New York Times hailed Beautiful Thing as ‘an intimate and valuable piece of reportage that will break your heart several times over.’ The book was an Observer, Guardian, and Economist Book of the Year, Time Out Subcontinental Book of the Year, CNN Mumbai Book of the Year, and The Sunday Times Travel Book of the Year, 2011. It has been published worldwide and translated into several languages.
She is the co-founder of Deca, a global cooperative of award-winning journalists. Her writing has received support from the Pulitzer Centre and The Investigative Fund, and appears in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Harper's, Granta, 1843, The California Sunday Magazine, and MIT Technology Review.
She lives in London and is represented by The Wylie Agency.
The New York Times hailed Beautiful Thing as ‘an intimate and valuable piece of reportage that will break your heart several times over.’ The book was an Observer, Guardian, and Economist Book of the Year, Time Out Subcontinental Book of the Year, CNN Mumbai Book of the Year, and The Sunday Times Travel Book of the Year, 2011. It has been published worldwide and translated into several languages.
She is the co-founder of Deca, a global cooperative of award-winning journalists. Her writing has received support from the Pulitzer Centre and The Investigative Fund, and appears in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Harper's, Granta, 1843, The California Sunday Magazine, and MIT Technology Review.
She lives in London and is represented by The Wylie Agency.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
August 10, 2019
The author was a reporter working on a serious story of Bombay's dance bars, but ended up writing a soap opera about just two of them, the I'm-so-beautiful Leela and her best friend, film-directors-are-after-me Priya, bar dancers at Night Lovers club. I think she must have been a reporter for the Indian equivalent of the National Enquirer, or perhaps the utterly scurrillous, now defunct News of the World. As such it kind of sucks you into to a world where girls are forever teasing men and the right attention, presents, money even, will get the men sex. When the men move on, there is all sorts of drama.
The girls are forever talking about marriage although I don't know why after reading this passage,
"Later my mother-in-law, God bless her soul, she took me aside, to counsel me, I thought. What did she say/ "After marriage if we discover you aren't a kunwari ladki, a virgin, jaan ki kasam," she said to me, "I will cut your breasts off with the same knife I use to cut the stems of the potato flowers and I will feed them, piece by meat piece to the crows."
After the girls aged out of bar dancing, (marriage was not really an option, none of them being virgins, as it were), they had a choice, either become "waiters" in a "silent bar", which didn't mean that they served drinks, more that they did hand-jobs, or "Pimping was the natural next step because no one was better equipped to sell women, it was believed, than one who had been sold or had sold herself."
I've read a few books about whores and madams or maids recently, the very mediocre Legal Tender: True Tales of a Brothel Madam and the stunningly, ten-star brilliant West End Girls: The Real Lives, Loves and Friendships of 1940s Soho and its Working Girls. I'm interested in the subject and thought this book might add an extra perspective but it really is soap opera. It wasn't bad, but it didn't hold my interest. so I'm not exactly dnf'ing it, but putting it on the back burner for now.
This book was written for an Indian audience, the English is often very foreign, which definitely adds flavour, the Hindi is impenetrable, but isn't really a problem, just the writing doesn't flow because I don't understand it. I'd really like to read a review of this book by one of my Indian friends though, that would definitely be a different perspective, one I didn't find myself.
The girls are forever talking about marriage although I don't know why after reading this passage,
"Later my mother-in-law, God bless her soul, she took me aside, to counsel me, I thought. What did she say/ "After marriage if we discover you aren't a kunwari ladki, a virgin, jaan ki kasam," she said to me, "I will cut your breasts off with the same knife I use to cut the stems of the potato flowers and I will feed them, piece by meat piece to the crows."
After the girls aged out of bar dancing, (marriage was not really an option, none of them being virgins, as it were), they had a choice, either become "waiters" in a "silent bar", which didn't mean that they served drinks, more that they did hand-jobs, or "Pimping was the natural next step because no one was better equipped to sell women, it was believed, than one who had been sold or had sold herself."
I've read a few books about whores and madams or maids recently, the very mediocre Legal Tender: True Tales of a Brothel Madam and the stunningly, ten-star brilliant West End Girls: The Real Lives, Loves and Friendships of 1940s Soho and its Working Girls. I'm interested in the subject and thought this book might add an extra perspective but it really is soap opera. It wasn't bad, but it didn't hold my interest. so I'm not exactly dnf'ing it, but putting it on the back burner for now.
This book was written for an Indian audience, the English is often very foreign, which definitely adds flavour, the Hindi is impenetrable, but isn't really a problem, just the writing doesn't flow because I don't understand it. I'd really like to read a review of this book by one of my Indian friends though, that would definitely be a different perspective, one I didn't find myself.
November 24, 2010
Its a complete celebration and victory of the free spirit of women all over , that has been so beautifully brought out with an unrivalled sensitivity . All the souls in this book will remain with you long after you finish reading the book .This is one masterpiece , i would recommend everyone to read and especially my daughter ..
December 2, 2011
I have been a fan of investigative journalism. Many such pieces of work delve deep inside the world of human emotions and showcase a side of humans not known to many. I have never been able to understand the world of Dance Bars. Sonia Faleiro narrates a story of Leela through whose eyes Sonia has seen a world unknown to many of us. The world of dance bars is full of sleaze. It’s a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, bestial sex and violence. It is a world full of customers of varied types, gangsters and of police, prostitutes and thereby, pimps.
[iamge]Sonia goes on to describe how women enter this trade. She talks about their upheaval. She talks about their emotions, their insecurities and she also talks about their old age. She is quite vocal and explicit in the way she describes their situation. However, the book is not titillating in any way whatsoever. It empathizes with these women in many ways than one. The book is quite sad to read because it talks about the levels to which these women have to stoop for survival. Through Leela’s story, Sonia Faleiro has described in several ways how these women in Dance Bars are objects or commodities in the hands of people who frequent these dance bars. Eventually, these objects of desire (these women) are used by the same set of customers to fulfill their sexual needs.
Sonia talks about Leela’s initiation into the trade. When I read that piece, I wondered how several women across the globe must be surviving such a life. The book is quite descriptive and graphic in the way it portrays the life of a bar dancer. Soon, one realizes that these bar dancers land up prostituting themselves as well. It is an infection in the society. This journey that begins at a dance bar soon turns into a full time profession of prostitution.
“Beautiful Thing” walks a reader through the journey, Leela has had. It talks about the roles politicians, gangsters have played for years together in this industry. Survival drives these women to stoop to any level to earn their living. Self-respect, dignity and a healthy life is not what they can expect in a business or trade such as this. Flesh trade has always had the looming danger of health hazards and now these women are so susceptible to deadly viruses such as HIV. From agreeing to please one customer on a rare occasions, these women slowly turn to prostituting in lodges, by hiring rickshaw drivers, by visiting beaches in and around Mumbai and occasionally by soliciting customers in the infamous red light areas of Mumbai as well.
Sonia Faleiro has not camouflaged any matter in the book; it comes across as a story told in the form of a diary. I mean, there are incidents that are mundane but reveal a side of human beings unknown to many. It pains a reader to read about the level of desperation that these women reach.
The book is a sort of intimate reportage, personal yet sensitive and deeply moving. It is about the journey of a bar dancer from Mumbai’s bars and her journey down the drain (so to speak) into the dark lanes of Mumbai’s sex trade. In spite of it having such a depressing effect on me, I must say that the book showcases the resilience of these women and it also highlights their survival spirit.
The book appears quite matter of fact in its way of storytelling. Leela, the protagonist, is also a representative of this section of society. She comes across as a strong woman with intelligence. I also feel that the book talks about Leela’s hunger for love but she never gets it in return from anyone.
I recommend, you read this book to gain an insight into the human spirit. In some of the darkest professions of the world, women find hope. Some survive and some diminish! There are many organizations that attempt to rehabilitate these women. However, I am sure that the percentage of successful rehabilitation must be really low. Does the society accept them back among them? I am sure, it does not!
The government is implementing programs to uplift these women but I think; the larger role has to be played by society in general. Many young girls are forced into this profession not only for money but because many of them virtually have no other option in order to survive. Can education play a role in here? Can awareness be built among these people? The entire situation looks quite grim because as long as there exist people who abuse these girls, their plight will not be any different. I, myself do not have answers to many of these questions that I have raised here.
Many of us are alien to a world that exists out there. We have no clue about the plight of these women and many of us cannot even fathom their circumstances, their situation. This book has opened my eyes to the plight of women who are desperate to survive. Many are victims of gruesome abuse but they also have the resilience to survive. Many die a premature death. Read “Beautiful Thing” for it will make you sit up and take notice of the underprivileged section of society in the oldest trade of the world, the sex industry. One may not be able to actively do something for the betterment of these women but being aware can also help in some way to put forward baby steps to save many lives from entering this dark world.
[iamge]Sonia goes on to describe how women enter this trade. She talks about their upheaval. She talks about their emotions, their insecurities and she also talks about their old age. She is quite vocal and explicit in the way she describes their situation. However, the book is not titillating in any way whatsoever. It empathizes with these women in many ways than one. The book is quite sad to read because it talks about the levels to which these women have to stoop for survival. Through Leela’s story, Sonia Faleiro has described in several ways how these women in Dance Bars are objects or commodities in the hands of people who frequent these dance bars. Eventually, these objects of desire (these women) are used by the same set of customers to fulfill their sexual needs.
Sonia talks about Leela’s initiation into the trade. When I read that piece, I wondered how several women across the globe must be surviving such a life. The book is quite descriptive and graphic in the way it portrays the life of a bar dancer. Soon, one realizes that these bar dancers land up prostituting themselves as well. It is an infection in the society. This journey that begins at a dance bar soon turns into a full time profession of prostitution.
“Beautiful Thing” walks a reader through the journey, Leela has had. It talks about the roles politicians, gangsters have played for years together in this industry. Survival drives these women to stoop to any level to earn their living. Self-respect, dignity and a healthy life is not what they can expect in a business or trade such as this. Flesh trade has always had the looming danger of health hazards and now these women are so susceptible to deadly viruses such as HIV. From agreeing to please one customer on a rare occasions, these women slowly turn to prostituting in lodges, by hiring rickshaw drivers, by visiting beaches in and around Mumbai and occasionally by soliciting customers in the infamous red light areas of Mumbai as well.
Sonia Faleiro has not camouflaged any matter in the book; it comes across as a story told in the form of a diary. I mean, there are incidents that are mundane but reveal a side of human beings unknown to many. It pains a reader to read about the level of desperation that these women reach.
The book is a sort of intimate reportage, personal yet sensitive and deeply moving. It is about the journey of a bar dancer from Mumbai’s bars and her journey down the drain (so to speak) into the dark lanes of Mumbai’s sex trade. In spite of it having such a depressing effect on me, I must say that the book showcases the resilience of these women and it also highlights their survival spirit.
The book appears quite matter of fact in its way of storytelling. Leela, the protagonist, is also a representative of this section of society. She comes across as a strong woman with intelligence. I also feel that the book talks about Leela’s hunger for love but she never gets it in return from anyone.
I recommend, you read this book to gain an insight into the human spirit. In some of the darkest professions of the world, women find hope. Some survive and some diminish! There are many organizations that attempt to rehabilitate these women. However, I am sure that the percentage of successful rehabilitation must be really low. Does the society accept them back among them? I am sure, it does not!
The government is implementing programs to uplift these women but I think; the larger role has to be played by society in general. Many young girls are forced into this profession not only for money but because many of them virtually have no other option in order to survive. Can education play a role in here? Can awareness be built among these people? The entire situation looks quite grim because as long as there exist people who abuse these girls, their plight will not be any different. I, myself do not have answers to many of these questions that I have raised here.
Many of us are alien to a world that exists out there. We have no clue about the plight of these women and many of us cannot even fathom their circumstances, their situation. This book has opened my eyes to the plight of women who are desperate to survive. Many are victims of gruesome abuse but they also have the resilience to survive. Many die a premature death. Read “Beautiful Thing” for it will make you sit up and take notice of the underprivileged section of society in the oldest trade of the world, the sex industry. One may not be able to actively do something for the betterment of these women but being aware can also help in some way to put forward baby steps to save many lives from entering this dark world.
September 29, 2011
'Beautiful Thing' does not start off very well. The writing seems a little choppy; somewhat disjointed. I find myself thinking that Suketu Mehta probably did a better job covering similar material in 'Maximum City'. Louise Brown's 'The Dancing Girls of Lahore' is another outstanding book on a similar subject. However, after the first few pages, the story of 'Leela' a teenage 'bar girl' in Bombay really picks up. Sonia Faleiro tells her story with compassion, without pulling any punches and without any gratuitous sentimentality or romanticism, which books in this genre can almost unwittingly descend into. The final result is a compelling view into the life of a teenaged girl, who is smart, plucky, selfish, narcissistic and above all, a survivor. A girl, who manages to retain some semblance of dignity in extremely difficult circumstances, on the fringes of a society that stigmatizes her while gleefully exploiting her. The book is peopled with extremely well drawn characters, who drift in and out of Leela's world, their stories no less compelling than her's.
In the end, Sonia Faleiro serves up a brilliant and insightful book that goes far beyond reportage. Against all odds we find ourselves rooting for this brash young girl, whose tough, blase and worldly-wise exterior is unable to hide the vulnerability that lies just beneath.
Definitely worth a read !!!
In the end, Sonia Faleiro serves up a brilliant and insightful book that goes far beyond reportage. Against all odds we find ourselves rooting for this brash young girl, whose tough, blase and worldly-wise exterior is unable to hide the vulnerability that lies just beneath.
Definitely worth a read !!!
October 22, 2024
Writing - 4/5
Research - 4/5
Characterization - 4/5
Setting - 4/5
Faleiro was a reporter in search of a story when she met Leela, a beautiful and charismatic bar dancer with a story to tell. Leela introduced Sonia to the underworld of Bombay’s dance bars: a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, sex and violence, of customers and gangsters, of police, prostitutes and pimps. Faleiro takes you into Leela's world. You meet her boss, her best friend, her customers. You live in her house. You go to parties with her. You experience the bad experiences as narrated by Leela. You experience the few good moments as narrated by Leela. You wonder how so many situations can work against one person in one lifetime. Through it all we get an impression of Leela as ever-optimistic and ever hopeful. And that is beautiful and this book is beautiful for the way it brings Leela's story to life.
I give this book a 4/5 for writing, characterization and research.
Research - 4/5
Characterization - 4/5
Setting - 4/5
Faleiro was a reporter in search of a story when she met Leela, a beautiful and charismatic bar dancer with a story to tell. Leela introduced Sonia to the underworld of Bombay’s dance bars: a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, sex and violence, of customers and gangsters, of police, prostitutes and pimps. Faleiro takes you into Leela's world. You meet her boss, her best friend, her customers. You live in her house. You go to parties with her. You experience the bad experiences as narrated by Leela. You experience the few good moments as narrated by Leela. You wonder how so many situations can work against one person in one lifetime. Through it all we get an impression of Leela as ever-optimistic and ever hopeful. And that is beautiful and this book is beautiful for the way it brings Leela's story to life.
I give this book a 4/5 for writing, characterization and research.
December 4, 2010
What can I say about this book that hasn't been said before? It's shocking, moving, heartbreaking. It's a new Maximum City. It's the story of a bar dancer and her downward spiral into the circle of hell that is the Bombay underworld. It's the story of the author's friendship with the bar dancer and of how they grow together as individuals. And it's the story of India like it has never been told.
I bought this book, then I bought three more copies for family and friends. It's unforgettable.
I bought this book, then I bought three more copies for family and friends. It's unforgettable.
February 17, 2019
'Beautiful Thing – Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars' by Sonia Faleiro is a remarkable documentary account of a few years in the life of Leela, a dancer in a Mumbai dance bar, her friends, her clients and her co-workers. It’s a life set on the wrong side of the tracks which reveals the power of friendship, honour and companionship that belies the sordid surroundings. Even more remarkable is the friendship between Leela and the writer which offers Faleiro an opportunity to go where few writers would be able to and at considerable risk to her own health and personal safety.
I’ve long been aware of the shady world of the Mumbai dance bars because I was in Mumbai in 2005 on a business trip at the time of the crackdown which is described in the book. The local papers were full of the news of the closure of the dance bars and I asked a local colleague what it was all about. He blushed and, being a respectable Kerala Christian, explained to me that they were bars where men go to have a few drinks and watch ladies dancing but that they were not strip joints or pole-dancing places (in so much as he had any idea what those were like either). The bars had been accused of encouraging immorality and a local politician had sent in the police to shut them down. I was fascinated but didn’t like to push him further – so when I heard that a book had been written about the dance bar world, I wanted to read it to fill the gaps in the Swiss-cheese of my knowledge.
They say you should never judge a book by its cover but when that cover carries endorsements by William Dalrymple, Kiran Desai and Gregory David Roberts, Indiaphiles will realise that this is something very special and readers should sit up and take notice. I’ve read a lot of non-fiction about India and whilst it’s almost always interesting, some of the books can be heavy going. The only hard thing about 'Beautiful Thing' will be putting it down once you’ve started. For a difficult story, it’s a remarkably easy read that flows like a novel rather than non-fiction.
Sitting on our western perches, the image we have of women in India is usually that there’s little more important in life than a girl’s virginity and the drive of her parents to make a good marriage. What ‘Beautiful Thing’ shows us is that Indian life isn’t all about virginity, dowry and respectability. Leela’s father took her virginity when she was still a child before later sharing her with other men in the family. Faced with such a life, she ran away to the city. It’s no wonder we learn she’s a hard, coldly-calculating woman who knows her own value and how to exploit her ‘kustomers’. She calls her boss at the dance bar her ‘husband’ and is magnanimous in turning a blind eye to his relationship with his wife. By contrast the parents of her even more beautiful friend and fellow dancer Priya valued her virginity highly – so much so that they sold it to the highest bidder for a considerable sum of money, thus ruining any chance of a good marriage but pocketing a lot of money and saving themselves the trouble of a dowry. Is it any wonder that dressing in pretty clothes and performing Bollywood dance routines for a bunch of men paying over the odds for drinks must have seemed like a sanctuary? When the clubs were closed down and the girls lost their relative safety and security, it doesn’t take long for their lives to turn considerably more dangerous and sordid.
We learn that life in the dance bars gives the most beautiful and popular girls a wealth that’s beyond the dreams of the prostitutes out in the slums and a relative respectability that enables them to be courted by clients who spoil them rotten in return (initially) for little more than a bit of flirting and hand holding. A girl can exploit a lovesick married man who’s never known beauty and exoticism in his sedate arranged marriage every bit as much as she herself is being exploited. There’s nothing modern about these arrangements – India has a long history of courtesanship – women providing entertainment and romantic distraction for men with money. Dancing girls are dancing girls – regardless of the time in history and the story is thus simultaneously very modern and somewhat timeless.
The money brings the girls little benefit though because they can only live in certain areas of the city where the neighbours will accept their career choices and they spend like crazy. One might suppose they’d earn to send money back to their families – until you remember what those families did to drive them to the city. Priya has a legal husband, a man she loves who bleeds her dry and cheats on her with other dance bar girls, impressed by how far one girl will go to self-mutilate as testimony to her love. On the other hand, when the looks start to fade and the reliance on cheap drugs to keep them slender takes away their looks, there’s only one direction the girls will be heading and that’s downhill towards running or working in the brothels. The top girls dream of an assignment in the Middle East, of being sent to Dubai to dance for wealthy Arabs and take on the status of ‘temporary wife’ which allows their clients to stay within the letter, if not the spirit, of Sharia Law.
Beautiful Thing is not entirely and unrelentingly miserable. There are moments – few and far between – when the story lifts your spirits. There’s the story of one of Leela’s friends, a hijra (transsexual) whose parents realised their only way to keep the son they love is to accept his choices. He and his family seem to represent the only family in the book who are not utterly dysfunctional. The bar dancers and the less fortunate hijras take great comfort from this tiny evidence that family relationships can work and love can conquer even the most extreme of life choices. The book is an eye-opener of the most fascinating type – a rare and privileged opportunity to take a tour of not just the demi-monde of Mumbai but, after the bars close down and times get hard, the real hard graft of the unsafe streets and brothels of the city.
I am absolutely awestruck by the research that went into this book which is Sonia Faleiro’s first. To throw yourself into the underworld, court the friendship of fascinating but dangerous people, follow them wherever they go without apparent concern for your safety, and to do all that as a young woman from out of town, is nothing short of remarkable. Even more so, to do it by choice. Hats off to Faleiro – she’s an astonishingly brave woman. I really hope that we don’t have to wait five years for her next book. I fear that the market for non-fiction of this type outside India is surely rather small and the use of a lot of local language (often but not always) translated or explained, will alienate many readers, but I hope that enough will accept that it’s a small price to pay for a book that’s truly one of a kind.
I’ve long been aware of the shady world of the Mumbai dance bars because I was in Mumbai in 2005 on a business trip at the time of the crackdown which is described in the book. The local papers were full of the news of the closure of the dance bars and I asked a local colleague what it was all about. He blushed and, being a respectable Kerala Christian, explained to me that they were bars where men go to have a few drinks and watch ladies dancing but that they were not strip joints or pole-dancing places (in so much as he had any idea what those were like either). The bars had been accused of encouraging immorality and a local politician had sent in the police to shut them down. I was fascinated but didn’t like to push him further – so when I heard that a book had been written about the dance bar world, I wanted to read it to fill the gaps in the Swiss-cheese of my knowledge.
They say you should never judge a book by its cover but when that cover carries endorsements by William Dalrymple, Kiran Desai and Gregory David Roberts, Indiaphiles will realise that this is something very special and readers should sit up and take notice. I’ve read a lot of non-fiction about India and whilst it’s almost always interesting, some of the books can be heavy going. The only hard thing about 'Beautiful Thing' will be putting it down once you’ve started. For a difficult story, it’s a remarkably easy read that flows like a novel rather than non-fiction.
Sitting on our western perches, the image we have of women in India is usually that there’s little more important in life than a girl’s virginity and the drive of her parents to make a good marriage. What ‘Beautiful Thing’ shows us is that Indian life isn’t all about virginity, dowry and respectability. Leela’s father took her virginity when she was still a child before later sharing her with other men in the family. Faced with such a life, she ran away to the city. It’s no wonder we learn she’s a hard, coldly-calculating woman who knows her own value and how to exploit her ‘kustomers’. She calls her boss at the dance bar her ‘husband’ and is magnanimous in turning a blind eye to his relationship with his wife. By contrast the parents of her even more beautiful friend and fellow dancer Priya valued her virginity highly – so much so that they sold it to the highest bidder for a considerable sum of money, thus ruining any chance of a good marriage but pocketing a lot of money and saving themselves the trouble of a dowry. Is it any wonder that dressing in pretty clothes and performing Bollywood dance routines for a bunch of men paying over the odds for drinks must have seemed like a sanctuary? When the clubs were closed down and the girls lost their relative safety and security, it doesn’t take long for their lives to turn considerably more dangerous and sordid.
We learn that life in the dance bars gives the most beautiful and popular girls a wealth that’s beyond the dreams of the prostitutes out in the slums and a relative respectability that enables them to be courted by clients who spoil them rotten in return (initially) for little more than a bit of flirting and hand holding. A girl can exploit a lovesick married man who’s never known beauty and exoticism in his sedate arranged marriage every bit as much as she herself is being exploited. There’s nothing modern about these arrangements – India has a long history of courtesanship – women providing entertainment and romantic distraction for men with money. Dancing girls are dancing girls – regardless of the time in history and the story is thus simultaneously very modern and somewhat timeless.
The money brings the girls little benefit though because they can only live in certain areas of the city where the neighbours will accept their career choices and they spend like crazy. One might suppose they’d earn to send money back to their families – until you remember what those families did to drive them to the city. Priya has a legal husband, a man she loves who bleeds her dry and cheats on her with other dance bar girls, impressed by how far one girl will go to self-mutilate as testimony to her love. On the other hand, when the looks start to fade and the reliance on cheap drugs to keep them slender takes away their looks, there’s only one direction the girls will be heading and that’s downhill towards running or working in the brothels. The top girls dream of an assignment in the Middle East, of being sent to Dubai to dance for wealthy Arabs and take on the status of ‘temporary wife’ which allows their clients to stay within the letter, if not the spirit, of Sharia Law.
Beautiful Thing is not entirely and unrelentingly miserable. There are moments – few and far between – when the story lifts your spirits. There’s the story of one of Leela’s friends, a hijra (transsexual) whose parents realised their only way to keep the son they love is to accept his choices. He and his family seem to represent the only family in the book who are not utterly dysfunctional. The bar dancers and the less fortunate hijras take great comfort from this tiny evidence that family relationships can work and love can conquer even the most extreme of life choices. The book is an eye-opener of the most fascinating type – a rare and privileged opportunity to take a tour of not just the demi-monde of Mumbai but, after the bars close down and times get hard, the real hard graft of the unsafe streets and brothels of the city.
I am absolutely awestruck by the research that went into this book which is Sonia Faleiro’s first. To throw yourself into the underworld, court the friendship of fascinating but dangerous people, follow them wherever they go without apparent concern for your safety, and to do all that as a young woman from out of town, is nothing short of remarkable. Even more so, to do it by choice. Hats off to Faleiro – she’s an astonishingly brave woman. I really hope that we don’t have to wait five years for her next book. I fear that the market for non-fiction of this type outside India is surely rather small and the use of a lot of local language (often but not always) translated or explained, will alienate many readers, but I hope that enough will accept that it’s a small price to pay for a book that’s truly one of a kind.
June 8, 2012
My review in Shelf Awareness:
"Beautiful Thing is a portrait that begins in profile: "Leela's face was a perfect heart," Sonia Faleiro writes. "And knowing well the elegance of her little nose, Leela would flaunt it like an engagement ring. On certain evenings at the dance bar, when she needed to increase the padding of hundred rupee notes in her bra, Leela would engage only in silhouette."
Faleiro met 19-year-old Leela while she was researching an article on Bombay's "bar dancers," the thousands of maltreated, disenfranchised, often alarmingly young girls who make their livings performing for men in dark bars, frequently selling sex at the behest of pimps. The article, deemed "un-newsworthy," went unpublished--but Faleiro, captivated by Leela's irrepressible vitality, knew this proud, independent girl had a story that must be told.
Beautiful Thing is Leela's story, but through her, Faleiro unveils a larger narrative of Bombay's bar dancers and sex workers, one colored by love and violence, glamour and squalor, sex and corruption--and one that reveals the dark heart of Bombay itself. The city (glittering with promises but "toxic, no less than an open wound") and its dance bars attract girls like Leela, who are lured into working "on the line" because of the immediate financial independence it promises. Faleiro discovered that essentially all of these young women were fleeing horrifying home lives rife with every kind of abuse; she recounts that "every one of the bar dancers in Leela's building had either been raped by a blood relative or sold by one." But even though life on the line is a landmine of danger and exploitation, Leela relishes the freedom it seems to allow her.
Faleiro follows Leela through a year of her life--into dance bars, into brothels, into tiny flats cramped with beautiful girls and plastic bags stuffed with gifts from their customers. She meets a vibrant, heartbreaking array of dancers, prostitutes and hijras (physiologically male sex workers who dress and act as women), as well as the pimps, madams, gangsters and corrupt police who govern their lives. Customers and lovers come and go; friendships are intense, rivalries brutal.
Never judgmental or condescending, Faleiro delivers Leela's story with a reporter's distance and a novelist's immediacy. She animates journalistic observations with vivid descriptions, and her dialogue sings with slang and dialect. Leela moves through the pages as a remarkable, tragic and inspiring figure--victim, heroine, survivor."
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue....
"Beautiful Thing is a portrait that begins in profile: "Leela's face was a perfect heart," Sonia Faleiro writes. "And knowing well the elegance of her little nose, Leela would flaunt it like an engagement ring. On certain evenings at the dance bar, when she needed to increase the padding of hundred rupee notes in her bra, Leela would engage only in silhouette."
Faleiro met 19-year-old Leela while she was researching an article on Bombay's "bar dancers," the thousands of maltreated, disenfranchised, often alarmingly young girls who make their livings performing for men in dark bars, frequently selling sex at the behest of pimps. The article, deemed "un-newsworthy," went unpublished--but Faleiro, captivated by Leela's irrepressible vitality, knew this proud, independent girl had a story that must be told.
Beautiful Thing is Leela's story, but through her, Faleiro unveils a larger narrative of Bombay's bar dancers and sex workers, one colored by love and violence, glamour and squalor, sex and corruption--and one that reveals the dark heart of Bombay itself. The city (glittering with promises but "toxic, no less than an open wound") and its dance bars attract girls like Leela, who are lured into working "on the line" because of the immediate financial independence it promises. Faleiro discovered that essentially all of these young women were fleeing horrifying home lives rife with every kind of abuse; she recounts that "every one of the bar dancers in Leela's building had either been raped by a blood relative or sold by one." But even though life on the line is a landmine of danger and exploitation, Leela relishes the freedom it seems to allow her.
Faleiro follows Leela through a year of her life--into dance bars, into brothels, into tiny flats cramped with beautiful girls and plastic bags stuffed with gifts from their customers. She meets a vibrant, heartbreaking array of dancers, prostitutes and hijras (physiologically male sex workers who dress and act as women), as well as the pimps, madams, gangsters and corrupt police who govern their lives. Customers and lovers come and go; friendships are intense, rivalries brutal.
Never judgmental or condescending, Faleiro delivers Leela's story with a reporter's distance and a novelist's immediacy. She animates journalistic observations with vivid descriptions, and her dialogue sings with slang and dialect. Leela moves through the pages as a remarkable, tragic and inspiring figure--victim, heroine, survivor."
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue....
December 23, 2010
It is a well researched book. The aspect that jarred me was the constant usage of the phonetic. Perhaps it is an ethnographic trick. But for me that stuttered the pace of what could be a wonderfully written book. Till now I'd held up Maximum City as the index of writing a reasonably fast paced and written well book. In this her writing style actually fades into the background without having it leap out at the reader across the pages and impressing with imagery or, skill with words.
Combining research, ethnography and a reporter's eye takes some ambition. This is an ambitious book. But it falls short of wrapping all of that into a narrative.
Combining research, ethnography and a reporter's eye takes some ambition. This is an ambitious book. But it falls short of wrapping all of that into a narrative.
November 1, 2024
Beautiful Thing is a documentary book on the lives of bar dancers in Bombay. The story unfurls when Faleiro meets Leela (the “bootiful” girl) and slowly gets acquainted with her world. Faleiro built a chemistry with Leela and then her acquaintances in a way, it grew into a friendship. It was a different kind of friendship. Faleiro calls it, So our one-sided relationship may be characterized thus: I called Leela. She ‘missed-called’ me.
The journalist in her story-style documentary tells her why she was drawn towards Leela.
Accompanied by Faleiro, we visit the apartment of Leela.
Dancing in a bar is not a career these young girls aspired to. The bar dancers come from a pool of girls/women who shared abusive or poor backgrounds. Either they were forced by their parents to split their legs to customers, or they had to force themselves to do so. Either way, this act/business bought them meals. So when one girl meets the hunger for sex of a customer, the customer on the other hand meets the girl’s hunger for food. In this pool of girls, dancing in a bar gives one more choice to make. It is on their hands, the bar’s good name relies on. They feel powerful, like they belong to the privileged class of this sex world. It was their only option to live with a little bit more dignity than their peers—sex workers, hijras, pimps etc.
In their fantasy, the man snoring next to them turns out to be the man they have been always waiting for. A girl fantasies that he falls in love with her, abandons his family, marries her, lets her retire from the bar. Then she is to host big parties, be the attention of a social group “Mrs. xyz knows how to throw a party!”... If their customer works in the film industry, their fantasy takes a different version—the customer offers her a big role in the new hotshot movie. She leaps from the class of bar dancers to the ones who play bar dancers on the big screens.
Though these fantasies almost never see daylight, the probable upgrade in life for them is—get gangster customers. The girls love gangsters. They respect other girls sleeping with gangsters. Gape their mouths open listening to the stories of their heroism. And if the gangsters ever spent jail time, their gape only widens. The ultimate upgrade their career may see—work in Dubai. Dubai immediately creates a sensation in these girls. “Kustomer only gives gold,” their eyes shine dreaming about Dubai. And not any girl makes it to Dubai. They are selected through a “scanning” process, also they should be able to speak in a civilized manner. Be able to compete in a foreign class—that is it.
Faleiro takes us to the men too. The “kustomer”. Leela’s friend Priya let us meet a customer of hers—a simple businessman in Bombay. He came from a rural village to Bombay, built his own business. While he is a dreamer, his wife whom he married in his young age, is not a match. His wife reminds him of the idle village days, always submitting to him, spending her days watching serials. She lacks dominance, lacks the lush vibe of an independent woman which he finds in Priya.
Priya and other girls in the book show us, once involved in this thriving business of sex world, there is no way of getting out of it. Society refuses to take them, family would only take their money. And these women get comfortable giving up their fantasy of marrying a regular guy and settling like any other housewife. Whatever money can buy, is something these women won’t give up. Think of it, money liberates a woman from her husband, from the eyes and mouths of society. Leela would tell Soniaji -
A great book to discover the lives of most, the background dancers in the shadow. It’s worth reading and knowing what a life they lead. Amongst misfortune and rainy days, they stand up and laugh. Thanks to Barbara for recommending this to me!
The journalist in her story-style documentary tells her why she was drawn towards Leela.
Leela was paid to dance for men. And I, and most people I knew, had seen bar dancers only in Bollywood films—not as the protagonist, but as background entertainment, one-dimensional and on the margins; manipulated and mistreated.
Accompanied by Faleiro, we visit the apartment of Leela.
Six squeezed into a 1 BHK, living in such disarray to a stranger’s eyes it would appear they moved in the previous night. Six sprawled on mattresses that had, with time, been whittled down to a bony hardness, flat as the ground itself. Six headrests were dupattas. Six stuck their collection in their bras, their jewellery into shoes, their shoes and clothes into plastic bags.
They gave the impression that any time now they would pick up and leave.
Dancing in a bar is not a career these young girls aspired to. The bar dancers come from a pool of girls/women who shared abusive or poor backgrounds. Either they were forced by their parents to split their legs to customers, or they had to force themselves to do so. Either way, this act/business bought them meals. So when one girl meets the hunger for sex of a customer, the customer on the other hand meets the girl’s hunger for food. In this pool of girls, dancing in a bar gives one more choice to make. It is on their hands, the bar’s good name relies on. They feel powerful, like they belong to the privileged class of this sex world. It was their only option to live with a little bit more dignity than their peers—sex workers, hijras, pimps etc.
In their fantasy, the man snoring next to them turns out to be the man they have been always waiting for. A girl fantasies that he falls in love with her, abandons his family, marries her, lets her retire from the bar. Then she is to host big parties, be the attention of a social group “Mrs. xyz knows how to throw a party!”... If their customer works in the film industry, their fantasy takes a different version—the customer offers her a big role in the new hotshot movie. She leaps from the class of bar dancers to the ones who play bar dancers on the big screens.
Though these fantasies almost never see daylight, the probable upgrade in life for them is—get gangster customers. The girls love gangsters. They respect other girls sleeping with gangsters. Gape their mouths open listening to the stories of their heroism. And if the gangsters ever spent jail time, their gape only widens. The ultimate upgrade their career may see—work in Dubai. Dubai immediately creates a sensation in these girls. “Kustomer only gives gold,” their eyes shine dreaming about Dubai. And not any girl makes it to Dubai. They are selected through a “scanning” process, also they should be able to speak in a civilized manner. Be able to compete in a foreign class—that is it.
Faleiro takes us to the men too. The “kustomer”. Leela’s friend Priya let us meet a customer of hers—a simple businessman in Bombay. He came from a rural village to Bombay, built his own business. While he is a dreamer, his wife whom he married in his young age, is not a match. His wife reminds him of the idle village days, always submitting to him, spending her days watching serials. She lacks dominance, lacks the lush vibe of an independent woman which he finds in Priya.
Priya and other girls in the book show us, once involved in this thriving business of sex world, there is no way of getting out of it. Society refuses to take them, family would only take their money. And these women get comfortable giving up their fantasy of marrying a regular guy and settling like any other housewife. Whatever money can buy, is something these women won’t give up. Think of it, money liberates a woman from her husband, from the eyes and mouths of society. Leela would tell Soniaji -
‘When you look at my life,’ she taught me, ‘don’t look at it beside yours. Look at it beside the life of my mother and my sister-in-law who have to take permission to walk down the road.’
A great book to discover the lives of most, the background dancers in the shadow. It’s worth reading and knowing what a life they lead. Amongst misfortune and rainy days, they stand up and laugh. Thanks to Barbara for recommending this to me!
Read
July 25, 2011Review from wonderful customer Denise!
The first half of the book tells the story about bar dancers and the second half deals with the effect of the ban imposed on Bombay’s dance bars, by the government.
The conversations with the characters flow naturally in a mix of English, Hindi, and slang that is oddly easy to understand sometimes. Things are told as they are, nothing more or less.
The life of dance bar girls is told through the story of Leela (a bar dancer), her family, her past, her friends from the same profession, her customers, dance bar owners, the underworld, the policemen, the pimps, the health hazards.
Life changes for Leela and the others in the most unexpected way.
You grow to care for Leela. The sad, moving fate to which she and the others are pushed to makes the reader think and question the “morality” of society.
The author brings it out, revealing the true nature of “men” – who move from one bed to another, from one woman to another, to satisfy their own needs. And women (like Leela) end up resorting to alcohol and false promises of happiness and normal life
The first half of the book tells the story about bar dancers and the second half deals with the effect of the ban imposed on Bombay’s dance bars, by the government.
The conversations with the characters flow naturally in a mix of English, Hindi, and slang that is oddly easy to understand sometimes. Things are told as they are, nothing more or less.
The life of dance bar girls is told through the story of Leela (a bar dancer), her family, her past, her friends from the same profession, her customers, dance bar owners, the underworld, the policemen, the pimps, the health hazards.
Life changes for Leela and the others in the most unexpected way.
You grow to care for Leela. The sad, moving fate to which she and the others are pushed to makes the reader think and question the “morality” of society.
The author brings it out, revealing the true nature of “men” – who move from one bed to another, from one woman to another, to satisfy their own needs. And women (like Leela) end up resorting to alcohol and false promises of happiness and normal life
April 16, 2019
Bought this years ago on a rec from Parul Sehgal. Sat on this forever and somehow the book survived so many moves and book purges and thank GOD I didn’t set it out on my stoop.
I was amazed by:
-Leela as a character, as a human being. Maybe my favorite character I’ve read in a book? Ever??
-Even minor characters were wonderful, it felt like if Faleiro had shifted her lens even a little bit she could have made a whole book out of each one of her supporting characters. (Masti Muskaan, Priya, Apsara!)
-The reporting it took to craft this. I cannot even fathom.
-Faleiro only bothers to translate so much. I tried some googling occasionally and often came up empty. The reader keeps up with her, she is not going to slow down for you. And it speaks to the power of her storytelling that even with my presumably large gaps in comprehension I was so moved by this book.
Separately:
This book is so much better executed than Richard Lloyd Party’s similar look at bar / sex work culture in Tokyo! (Still read his London review of books article on ghosts tho.) I am much happier with my recent decision to part ways with People Who Eat Darkness after reading this book.
I was amazed by:
-Leela as a character, as a human being. Maybe my favorite character I’ve read in a book? Ever??
-Even minor characters were wonderful, it felt like if Faleiro had shifted her lens even a little bit she could have made a whole book out of each one of her supporting characters. (Masti Muskaan, Priya, Apsara!)
-The reporting it took to craft this. I cannot even fathom.
-Faleiro only bothers to translate so much. I tried some googling occasionally and often came up empty. The reader keeps up with her, she is not going to slow down for you. And it speaks to the power of her storytelling that even with my presumably large gaps in comprehension I was so moved by this book.
Separately:
This book is so much better executed than Richard Lloyd Party’s similar look at bar / sex work culture in Tokyo! (Still read his London review of books article on ghosts tho.) I am much happier with my recent decision to part ways with People Who Eat Darkness after reading this book.
May 18, 2012
I reviewed this book for San Francisco Chronicle and gave it a big thumbs up. Painstakingly researched and moving story of a Mumbai bar dancer with a hard, hard life but an unbreakable spirit.Here's the link for the full review. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article....
June 17, 2013
This book was disappointing to me. While the concept was extremely interesting to me, the book itself left me wanting a LOT more. I expected a lot more first-hand information from the actual "dancers" - instead it basically felt like a reporter writing about the way things are in big city India, but nothing more, nothing personal. I would not recommend this book.
May 1, 2013
Could have happily spent the rest of my life not know that a bar owner in this book has constipation issues and picks "it" out then carries on with his day with out washing his hands. - considered aborting this book at this point. But that says more about me and not the subject matter as the real disgust, shock and repulsion should be towards the fate of women in this society.
March 24, 2011
A remarkable book with truth.....just one sentence "it brings tremendous respect for the girls working at Dance Bars & increases your respect towards Women"
May 5, 2011
Sonia Faleiro crafts a work of beauty
A review by Ben Antao
Beautiful Thing
By Sonia Faleiro
Publisher, Hamish Hamilton
Non-fiction, hardcover, pp 214, Rs 450
The beauty of this work of non-fiction is not the story as such, but the skill of the author who crafted it. The story of the barwali named Leela is not new for it’s been playing out for decades in India’s crowded cities and slums, and even in villages where fathers and mothers are forced to sell their children into prostitution out of desperation and destitution stemming from penury and hunger. What is dramatic about this story is that the journalist Sonia Faleiro, 33, has woven an artistic web to enthral the reader in the underbelly of Bombay’s dance bars, a squalid, sleazy slice of life made attractive and appealing through a prism of narrative realism that transcends mere reportage.
Based on extensive research into the bars and brothels of the city and interviews with sex workers, hijras, bar owners, madams, gangsters, policemen, and the characters documented in the story, this investigative adventure titled Beautiful Thing, Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars is brought to life by the author’s keen powers of observation and description, her talent for assimilating the peculiar lingo and Hindi slang spoken in such places into a narrative that crackles with energy and excitement.
Faleiro follows the life and struggles of her protagonist Leela who arrives in the big city as a teenager from her native village in Meerut and works as a dancer in the bar-restaurant called Night Lovers on Mira Road, owned by her lover Purshottam Shetty, a married man with two children. Bootiful Leela considers herself to be a kalass above the other prostitutes working the streets of Bombay. For her the “kustomer is cunt.”
“And so, Leela, seeing no similarities between the bar and the brothel, convinced herself that she had earned the right to sneer at such women, and she did, with primness and pride, even though every one of them, like her, had been hurt and exploited, and often, if not always, she sold sex because she had to,” writes Faleiro.
As for her boss Shetty, his chokris are high maintenance. “Some are quite fair-skinned,” he says, “not fair like a heroine. But more fair than kustomers. And they have to be kept happy. If I don’t treat them well, they will run off. And if I lose my best girls, I’ll lose my biggest collections. So any time one of them does nautanki, I throw notes at her. No worries then. Why no worries then? Because money is music. Yes or no? Yes! One note, two note, three note, four note … and they dance like it’s a sone ki barsaat! A shower of gold.”
Shetty also deals with the police and the local bureaucracy. He pays hafta, runs favours, writes off tabs, even offers women if the women consent, which they always do because it is expected of them. “It’s police-log ka politics,” he says, “bureaucrocy ka politics.”
A bar dancer like Leela is attracted to gangsters for she believes that “men are all gangsters anyway. So why shouldn’t I throw in my lot with a successful one? Gangsters have money. They’re smart-looking. They have tashan, style. What’s not to like? And they’re straight talkers. Fuck me, they say, straight off.”
As far as the customers are concerned, they are like a Ramzan goat, destined for slaughter. “And she must wield the knife,” Leela tells the author, “that would slit his throat, cut his head off and hang his carcass to drip, drip, drip. Never forget, a bar dancer’s game is lootna, kustomer ko bewakuf banana, to rob, to fool a customer.”
As Leela becomes successful and sends money to her parents, her mother Apsara (celestial nymph) joins her in Bombay. She calls her mother fat and very, very simple. Then she finds a friend in another dancer named Priya, who works in another bar Rassbery, also on Mira Road, where Priya meets her ‘husband’ Raj.
The author explores the red light district of Kamatipura, a warren of brothels for men, women and hijras. At the Gazala brothel she attends a birthday party with Leela and Priya, in honour of Gazala, the madam of the hijra brothel. Faleiro describes this party with consummate skill and empathy. Here’s a sample.
“As we sat on the floor eating cake with bendy spoons and sharing bottles of beer, I felt like I was among old friends. Of course, even my oldest friends have never displayed the transfixing curiosity hijras are known for. When they are comfortable with a woman, they sit real close and stroke her hair. They peek into her blouse to inspect the foreignness inside. In any other circumstance I would have left. That night, the pinching and prodding by Maya (hijra) and her friends made me feel on the in. In time, I came also to recognize this communal trait as a compliment. Hijras may call themselves the ‘third sex’ but they want nothing more than to be womanly. Their curiosity about the female form is an example of this naked urge and expressed most unabashedly with people they like, and wish to be like.”
In the Bombay suburb of Kalyan is HajI Malang, the shrine of HajI Abdul Rehman Shah Malang, believed to be a 12th century mystic and dervish from Yemen. Each year pilgrims celebrate his Urs, or death anniversary, for ten days. Bombay’s hijras make the annual pilgrimage to the shrine as it has a particular importance to them.
Leela and the author go on this pilgrimage. “Procuring sex, in fact, appeared as important a goal here as the attainment of spirituality,” writes Faleiro. “Or perhaps they amounted to the same thing, for as the night deepened, as the aroma of hash swirled in the air and spirits raised voices, confidence and desire, groups splintered into couples, couples who had hours previously been strangers, and they felt each other up in corners. Pushing aside the goats tethered there, they arched their backs against the walls of the communal toilets. All around the shrine, up and down the hill, the chill breeze gossiped of copulation.”
In September 2005 Leela loses her job because the Maharashtra government decided to ban the dance bars in establishments rated three stars or less, which included Night Lovers and Rassbery. However, bar dancing was permitted in high-end luxury hotels. The city had a population of 18 million then, of which 50% lived in the slums, a third had no clean drinking water and two million had no toilet facilities. After a period of wandering the slums in search of work, Leela decides to travel to Dubai to peddle her charms, such as they are.
Sonia, born in Goa, the daughter of Eduardo Faleiro, Goa’s NRI commissioner, lives in San Francisco with her American husband Ulrik McKnight. She has accumulated a huge material researching this book, material that she can transform into fiction in the future. A fictionalised story of bar dancers would allow for the creation of deep conflicts among the characters and for enduring human interest.
(Ben Antao is a veteran journalist and novelist who lives in Toronto. He has published five novels and several short fiction. His email: ben.antao@rogers.com )
Word count: 1200
April 9, 2020
At first I had some trouble reading this book. Not because of the subject matter, though it is difficult and trigger warnings abound, but the prevalence phonetic spelling was hard to understand at first. However, as I got to know the people involved, the spelling really gave me the flavor of their accents and I became more comfortable with it and understood it more.
This is a book about the bar dancers in Bombay. Not one of these girls had a happy life. The amount of abuse they suffered from the time they were born is unimaginable. The profession of "bar dancer" is looked upon as the best they could hope for in their lives. The reader gets a peak inside this life, how they got there, and where they might go when their done (which sounds a lot more optimistic than it is.)
Though in her acknowledgments, she says she changed a lot of the people's names for their privacy, but I am left curious if Leela and Priya were real, or represented many of the girls, and if they were real, what became of them. By the end, I had gotten emotionally attached to them and felt the author had as well, though in this line of work, if they were real, we may never know.
As horrifying as many of the details of their world were, it's easy to look at them as a nameless faceless group, but many forget (especially in the upper castes and government) that they are people each with their own stories.
This is a book about the bar dancers in Bombay. Not one of these girls had a happy life. The amount of abuse they suffered from the time they were born is unimaginable. The profession of "bar dancer" is looked upon as the best they could hope for in their lives. The reader gets a peak inside this life, how they got there, and where they might go when their done (which sounds a lot more optimistic than it is.)
Though in her acknowledgments, she says she changed a lot of the people's names for their privacy, but I am left curious if Leela and Priya were real, or represented many of the girls, and if they were real, what became of them. By the end, I had gotten emotionally attached to them and felt the author had as well, though in this line of work, if they were real, we may never know.
As horrifying as many of the details of their world were, it's easy to look at them as a nameless faceless group, but many forget (especially in the upper castes and government) that they are people each with their own stories.
July 5, 2020
“Beautiful Thing” walks a reader through the journey, Leela the bar dancer has had. It talks about the roles politicians, gangsters have played for years together in this industry. Survival drives these women to stoop to any level to earn their living. Self-respect, dignity and a healthy life is not what they can expect in a business or trade such as this.
The world of dance bars is full of sleaze. It’s a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, bestial sex and violence. It is a world full of customers of varied types, gangsters and of police, prostitutes and thereby, pimps.The book is a sort of intimate reportage, personal yet sensitive and deeply moving.The writing seems a little choppy; somewhat disjointed. The biggest problem was the lack if any sense of continuity in the book, it just jumps from one crisis to another....
quite ok !!! ....
The world of dance bars is full of sleaze. It’s a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, bestial sex and violence. It is a world full of customers of varied types, gangsters and of police, prostitutes and thereby, pimps.The book is a sort of intimate reportage, personal yet sensitive and deeply moving.The writing seems a little choppy; somewhat disjointed. The biggest problem was the lack if any sense of continuity in the book, it just jumps from one crisis to another....
quite ok !!! ....
May 23, 2024
Sonia evocatively chronicles the journey of dance bar girls and sex trade, the dark underbelly of Bombay through her protagonist Leela and those around her.
The book was revelation to me and unsettling in many ways. The in-depth journalistic research with strong narrative storytelling makes this non-fictional book heart-wrenching, gripping and unputdownable.
There are passages in the book that are disconcerting and heart breaking that I hoped I was reading a piece of fiction, but the fearlessness, courage and confidence of the women portrayed in the book made this book a page turner.
Reading Beautiful Thing also made me think about all the unsung women folk who we sub-consciously ignore - women who work hard thrice as hard as us to make ends meet for their family every single day.
The book was revelation to me and unsettling in many ways. The in-depth journalistic research with strong narrative storytelling makes this non-fictional book heart-wrenching, gripping and unputdownable.
There are passages in the book that are disconcerting and heart breaking that I hoped I was reading a piece of fiction, but the fearlessness, courage and confidence of the women portrayed in the book made this book a page turner.
Reading Beautiful Thing also made me think about all the unsung women folk who we sub-consciously ignore - women who work hard thrice as hard as us to make ends meet for their family every single day.
December 4, 2024
3.5/5 rounded up
A tough read -- the abuse and the horrors that the women face are relentless. It is heartbreaking to see the women hope and strive in their own ways for a better future, only to be betrayed again and again. Although Faleiro portrays only a few characters but it is clear that this could be the story of any of the thousands of women in the red-light district in Bombay.
A tough read -- the abuse and the horrors that the women face are relentless. It is heartbreaking to see the women hope and strive in their own ways for a better future, only to be betrayed again and again. Although Faleiro portrays only a few characters but it is clear that this could be the story of any of the thousands of women in the red-light district in Bombay.
July 30, 2019
A deep look into lives of the women, whose charms we wish to see in our own women. Still hating them for their profession.
Similarly as Manto had said, "A man desires charms of a prostitute and devotion of a bitch in his woman".
Similarly as Manto had said, "A man desires charms of a prostitute and devotion of a bitch in his woman".
May 3, 2021
Illuminating account of the harsh lives led by "dance bar girls". I found myself really wondering about the ethics of being a writer who chronicles the lives of those less fortunate than themselves.. in this instance the writer is just phenomenally privileged compared to her subject - I wonder what this means for the dynamic and also .. who really owns this book? All it is is the life of this girl really -- and we read it because its absolutely shocking that lives like this exist in parallel to ours .. Not that writers make a lot of money anyway at least not in India but its a question that never left my mind while reading this book. Notably in the book, the writer makes several attempts to help the subject and she refuses - is this true? WE'll never know. The book ends on a bit of cliffhanger -- in subsequent interviews, the writer says that she is no longer in touch with Leela the main protagonist - but that makes this book seem ever more .. mercenary. She got the story of the book, a nice conclusion to an inconvenient friendship. Not to create any misunderstandings - it was a very good book, well written, without any judgements, really just exposing how cruel the world is to poor people and women in particular -- but this writer-subject relationship made me uncomfortable.
July 4, 2021
Gave up after a couple of chapters. Couldn't get into the story due to the very fragmented and disjointed narrative. The constant interjection of Hindi words makes the writing extremely difficult to follow.
March 20, 2023
Enthralling book. Heartbreaking. I really feel for these women born into poverty in India and forced into this hard life just to survive. The world is a cruel, cruel place.
January 6, 2013
"I distrust biographical studies that soak in too much psychographic subtlety, as much as, that other egregious genre, biographical fiction- as though there were a difference between their performative horizons: both paint the object in the biases of the subject who vanishes under his narration, gesticulating strategically with the objects of analysis, when the narrative demands it independently of the objects’ self narrative. We are all subject to violence, who live, as someone somewhere is, always-already; what is a possibility once, after all, is a necessity for ever. The more idiomatic and transparent the narrative of a witness to violence greater the risk of the contamination of deeds by intentions, things by thought not mediated by the singularity of experiential being; in the self-subsistent sufferings of others there is seldom room for the others who are spoken of: they await their subjectivation by external description. There are only insular narratives because only one may speak before any meaning is negotiated; the lone subject of experience, already a partisan to her reactive, first-hand knowledge is, paradoxically, the only one who can tell what it is that is her conditional being. Biography must of necessity betray these commitments to fidelity if it must defray the cost of an audience’s total ignorance by paying for their enlightenment the great sacrifice of happenstance objectivity in the currency of personal impressions...
The shaggy book, no mean feat for a mere two hundred and eighteen pager, is garrulous with the vacillations, evasions and gossip of the main sufferer Leela and her comrades in the bijness of copulation without exploring any of the larger social tendencies which ground the institution of prostitution as it has come to be repudiated by forces larger than the ambitious politician she passes verdict on- an opportunistic chief minister of Maharashtra, who took umbrage at the possibility of moral corruption of society was not responsible for the Indian notions of purity which predated him and allowed a culture of lundchoos [cocksucking] whores and dirty hijras [eunuchs] punished for their mere existence. As though these cocksuckers were driven to their exploitation by a passion for seminal virtues and their obverse vices, regulated by the ritual and lore of Indian culture; dire necessity as a factor is focussed on, to Faleiro’s credit, but her analysis of the cultural patina which envelopes the flesh of the matter is conspicuous by its absence. She is carried away in embodying the petulant whore and her bitter sweet resentment against her family, cops, men, society and her eunuch friend by dissecting their dialect".
Read my complete review at:
http://skepoet.wordpress.com/2012/12/...
The shaggy book, no mean feat for a mere two hundred and eighteen pager, is garrulous with the vacillations, evasions and gossip of the main sufferer Leela and her comrades in the bijness of copulation without exploring any of the larger social tendencies which ground the institution of prostitution as it has come to be repudiated by forces larger than the ambitious politician she passes verdict on- an opportunistic chief minister of Maharashtra, who took umbrage at the possibility of moral corruption of society was not responsible for the Indian notions of purity which predated him and allowed a culture of lundchoos [cocksucking] whores and dirty hijras [eunuchs] punished for their mere existence. As though these cocksuckers were driven to their exploitation by a passion for seminal virtues and their obverse vices, regulated by the ritual and lore of Indian culture; dire necessity as a factor is focussed on, to Faleiro’s credit, but her analysis of the cultural patina which envelopes the flesh of the matter is conspicuous by its absence. She is carried away in embodying the petulant whore and her bitter sweet resentment against her family, cops, men, society and her eunuch friend by dissecting their dialect".
Read my complete review at:
http://skepoet.wordpress.com/2012/12/...
August 31, 2011
This is a wonderfully engaging and elegantly written book that tells the story of Leela, a teenage bar dancer in Mumbai’s seedy, barely-concealed underworld of dance bars and prostitution.
I forgot that I was reading a work of non-fiction. The author has so skilfully crafted the story and the characters that you feel you know Leela intimately from the very first page. Later characters like Priya and the cleverly constructed Apsara are also brilliantly drawn.
Although the book covers a fairly short time span and is relatively short in length, this adds to the pace of the narrative, which was gripping throughout. Beautiful Thing is a page turner. The twist in the tale in Apsara’s story, in particular, was unexpected genius and the somewhat sudden and frustrating ending left me wanting more. If ever Faleiro was to produce a sequel I’d be eager to read it. Leela is a character that stays with you long after the final page. There are many questions that remain unanswered, many fears for Leela that remain unassuaged.
Faleiro is subtle in her revelation of the prejudices that exist within the world of the dancers themselves. While it would be easy to focus on the obvious injustices the dancers face in the outside world, Faleiro succeeds in highlighting the bigotries that consume Leela and her cohorts, revealing a moral hierarchy within an immoral world.
My one criticism about the book would be the use of long strings of Hindi, which had the tendency to disrupt the flow of the narrative rather than add to it. But this is minor. Faleiro has created an endearingly solid work that was five years in the making and is as beautiful as its title implies. Beautiful Thing is a sensitive, often shocking and moving insight into a world that most wouldn’t want to be a part of but one which we’re hooked on discovering more about, however uncomfortable it is. That’s the writer’s ultimate talent in producing this gem of a book.
I forgot that I was reading a work of non-fiction. The author has so skilfully crafted the story and the characters that you feel you know Leela intimately from the very first page. Later characters like Priya and the cleverly constructed Apsara are also brilliantly drawn.
Although the book covers a fairly short time span and is relatively short in length, this adds to the pace of the narrative, which was gripping throughout. Beautiful Thing is a page turner. The twist in the tale in Apsara’s story, in particular, was unexpected genius and the somewhat sudden and frustrating ending left me wanting more. If ever Faleiro was to produce a sequel I’d be eager to read it. Leela is a character that stays with you long after the final page. There are many questions that remain unanswered, many fears for Leela that remain unassuaged.
Faleiro is subtle in her revelation of the prejudices that exist within the world of the dancers themselves. While it would be easy to focus on the obvious injustices the dancers face in the outside world, Faleiro succeeds in highlighting the bigotries that consume Leela and her cohorts, revealing a moral hierarchy within an immoral world.
My one criticism about the book would be the use of long strings of Hindi, which had the tendency to disrupt the flow of the narrative rather than add to it. But this is minor. Faleiro has created an endearingly solid work that was five years in the making and is as beautiful as its title implies. Beautiful Thing is a sensitive, often shocking and moving insight into a world that most wouldn’t want to be a part of but one which we’re hooked on discovering more about, however uncomfortable it is. That’s the writer’s ultimate talent in producing this gem of a book.
April 1, 2012
Beautiful Thing is a fascinating read, opening a window into a world I suspect most of us never knew about, much less imagined. The women of Bombay's dance bars sell themselves in every way imaginable - through dancing, through sex, through their involvement in the criminal underground. These women proudly wear the hallmark of survivors.
Whether or not you find it in yourself to admire these women, once you've read this book you will at least understand what extreme poverty, gender discrimination, and pure desperation will drive people to do. I thought often throughout this book of many Americans who aren't willing to clean their own homes and can hire this out because of their privilege. This is a great book for taking you outside of your cushy world and into doing what is necessary.
Faleiro writes honestly and without judgement of these women and their stories. Much of this book is brutal and shocking and Faleiro doesn't shelter her reader from this. She also doesn't pretend that any of these lives are dignified, even though through her empathy she draws the reader in. There are no cliched happy endings here.
I liked the first part of the book very much, but found myself becoming a bit disengaged during the second half as the focus turned from the lives of these women to political concerns. Despite this, Beautiful Thing is a rich and well-written glimpse into a world I'm very glad I don't have to live in.
Whether or not you find it in yourself to admire these women, once you've read this book you will at least understand what extreme poverty, gender discrimination, and pure desperation will drive people to do. I thought often throughout this book of many Americans who aren't willing to clean their own homes and can hire this out because of their privilege. This is a great book for taking you outside of your cushy world and into doing what is necessary.
Faleiro writes honestly and without judgement of these women and their stories. Much of this book is brutal and shocking and Faleiro doesn't shelter her reader from this. She also doesn't pretend that any of these lives are dignified, even though through her empathy she draws the reader in. There are no cliched happy endings here.
I liked the first part of the book very much, but found myself becoming a bit disengaged during the second half as the focus turned from the lives of these women to political concerns. Despite this, Beautiful Thing is a rich and well-written glimpse into a world I'm very glad I don't have to live in.
October 11, 2011
From the title you might not conclude that Beautiful Thing by Sonia Faleiro could be very educational… unless you wanted to swiftly contract AIDS & die in the slums of Mumbai.
However, this true story of the life of a bar-dancer illuminated many things for me about life in India as a Muslim woman, about the immovability of old social structures, the nature of old Islam and [of course], public health.
I really feel some insight into the quandaries of life for women under the old and poverty-stricken Muslim regimes all through time and around the world. You may disagree with my conclusions from the book, but I’m sure you’ll never think of India the same way again. You might pause to think about the nightlife in Dubai as well.
This might not be the blog-space for me to expand on the information I gained about “ladyboys” in Asia, either, but a lot of things make sense now on why there are so many and why they lead these distorted lives.
Have a look at the blurb on Beautiful Thing from an Australian bookseller. While you’re there, sample the text via the convenient Google preview- you may be intrigued:
http://thenile.com.au/books/Sonia-Fal...
She is a Beautiful Thing
For a RLY SRS discussion of my learnings from the book, I’ll hop over to my public health blog shortly [people who know me would say I do EVERYTHING "shortly", LOL].
http://healthforhumans.blogspot.com
Women, at least, should read this book- but you will need a strong stomach
However, this true story of the life of a bar-dancer illuminated many things for me about life in India as a Muslim woman, about the immovability of old social structures, the nature of old Islam and [of course], public health.
I really feel some insight into the quandaries of life for women under the old and poverty-stricken Muslim regimes all through time and around the world. You may disagree with my conclusions from the book, but I’m sure you’ll never think of India the same way again. You might pause to think about the nightlife in Dubai as well.
This might not be the blog-space for me to expand on the information I gained about “ladyboys” in Asia, either, but a lot of things make sense now on why there are so many and why they lead these distorted lives.
Have a look at the blurb on Beautiful Thing from an Australian bookseller. While you’re there, sample the text via the convenient Google preview- you may be intrigued:
http://thenile.com.au/books/Sonia-Fal...
She is a Beautiful Thing
For a RLY SRS discussion of my learnings from the book, I’ll hop over to my public health blog shortly [people who know me would say I do EVERYTHING "shortly", LOL].
http://healthforhumans.blogspot.com
Women, at least, should read this book- but you will need a strong stomach
May 4, 2012
I won Beautiful Thing by Sonia Faleiro from a firstreads contest. I it is an account by the author of the life lived by bar dancers and sex workers in Bombay and its surrounds. The focus, is Leela, who ran away from home after her father prostituted her. She eventually finds success as a bar dancer at Night Lovers in Bombay. She makes money dancing, she spends it, and she lives a relatively normal life despite a traumatic beginning. Leela is our glamorous heroine, seeking to embody the actresses in Bollywood films she admires.
Faleiro's focus is Leela, but she also covers a lot of ground in Bombay's sex work, hjiras (transsexuals), prostitution, the "silent bars" where the bar dancers refuse to believe they might end up giving hand-jobs to customers after their youth and beauty have faded.
This is an engaging read, and very informative. I found myself not wanting to put it down towards the end (perhaps because most of the discussion of early trauma occur during the beginning of the book, and those are the more "hard to read" parts). The integration of HIndi language into the text also lends it an authenticity that I appreciated. I found this book to be the right balance of serious reportage and Leela's own flip attitude.
Faleiro's focus is Leela, but she also covers a lot of ground in Bombay's sex work, hjiras (transsexuals), prostitution, the "silent bars" where the bar dancers refuse to believe they might end up giving hand-jobs to customers after their youth and beauty have faded.
This is an engaging read, and very informative. I found myself not wanting to put it down towards the end (perhaps because most of the discussion of early trauma occur during the beginning of the book, and those are the more "hard to read" parts). The integration of HIndi language into the text also lends it an authenticity that I appreciated. I found this book to be the right balance of serious reportage and Leela's own flip attitude.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews