Beautiful Thing

by Sonia Faleiro

And so dance bars either shut down or fired their bar dancers and stayed open. Or they transferred their leases, resurfacing as banks, yoga centres or restaurants. Some dance bars chose to violate the ban and were able to do so because they paid the police five times more hafta than they had before. The estimated 75,000 bar dancers affected by the ban were largely uneducated and unskilled and had no work experience but the experience of the dance bar. The majority had to seek employment elsewhere.

  The state government didn’t consider it its duty to compensate these women. Having initially promised to provide them with alternative employment, Patil backtracked, claiming that more than 75 per cent were illegal migrants from Bangladesh. The claim was debunked by an independent probe. Patil then suggested the women find work as ‘home guards’ or under the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS). If they didn’t, he insinuated, it was because they lacked the will to do honest work for standardized pay. Home guards are volunteer assistants to the police and are paid minimum wage, which was then set at seventy-five rupees per workday. The EGS is manual labour, primarily construction, and also paid minimum wage.

  The law targeted not just the women who danced but the licence holder of the space where the dance was being held. So although Shetty fired all of his bar dancers, including Leela, he was still open to threats and harassment from the police. Even women employed as waiters or as singers in the orchestra were arrested for ‘participating in obscene activities’. So were their customers. Shetty thought it simplest to shut down. He didn’t wish to appear to the police who were suddenly everywhere that he was above the law. What was more, he knew that once the attention of the public, and the press, died down, things would revert to normal. They always did.

  Shetty hadn’t thought twice about parting ways with Leela. The end, he insisted, had been some time coming. The trip to Lonavla had been a farewell gift. He thought she would have guessed, she was so smart.

  Leela hadn’t guessed, far from it, but she was quick to recover from this latest setback. Shetty had left her the way she would have left him in similar circumstances. With lies, without regret. She accepted his decision the way she did everything else destiny threw her way.

  Jyotishji had said it would be kathin, hadn’t he?

  { 2 }

  ‘Everyone drinks! Everyone beats!’

  Priya’s newest acquisition was called Tinkoo. He was her pimp. They had known each other a while; he was distantly related to the manager of Rassbery and was always hanging around. When Rassbery shut down, Tinkoo was adrift. He hoped to start a bijniss, preferably dalali. The girls he knew weren’t interested. They weren’t sure what they were going to do—wait out the Court’s decision, return to their villages, or get into dhanda—but whatever it was, they had better options than untried, untested Tinkoo.

  Priya thought so too, until she phoned her best customers. They taunted her: ‘Pehle nahin aayi thi, ab aana padega free mein.’ You wouldn’t have us before, but now you must, for free. So she decided to work alone, on the street. She was successful and then one evening she was not. That was the evening ‘something’ happened. After that, she reconsidered her decision. Tinkoo had been calling and she had shrugged off his calls. He was a boy, her age. And he was ‘soft’, good-natured. That wasn’t an undesirable quality in itself, but it wasn’t much use in their line of work.

  Then again, she had heard stories of real dalals. Not like Tinkoo at all.

  That a woman who worked with a dalal would have to earn a set quota each evening, and if she fell short, she would be beaten. It didn’t matter how much she earned, she always fell short; once her destiny was tied to that of a dalal, her enslavement was complete. All her dalal would do in exchange was arrange customers and book rooms for which she would pay. He would throw three hundred rupees at her and send in such a storm of ‘lund khade log’, men with hard-ons, she would pass out after. And he went for quantity, which was why dalali flourished where alcohol and drugs were sold—once a man got high he wanted sex. When a woman serviced only men with addictions, it wasn’t long before she was addicted herself, thus completing her dependence on her dalal.

  Priya knew all of this. But she knew also that a woman, a young woman who looked like her and had never before worked the streets of Bombay, wasn’t safe alone. What could Tinkoo do? If he acted smart she would give him two slaps!

  So after giving it some thought Priya decided to return Tinkoo’s calls. Tinkoo was so thrilled to hear her voice, so gushing, so grateful, Priya immediately questioned the wisdom of her decision. ‘He’s very young,’ she sighed.

  Leela had her doubts too. And not just because Tinkoo was a dalal, even if all he was was a wannabe dalal. He was a liar. He answered his phone sometimes with ‘Pappu boltoi’ in Marathi and at other times with ‘Kaka spikking’ in English. Was his name Tinkoo or not? She was also put off by his ‘tapori’ style. His ‘chadds’ were always on display, for which she privately referred to him as ‘Chaddi Bhai’. He dug name brands, same as Leela, but he had ‘no culture’—the first time they met he was in ‘Fendi’, in ‘Diesel’. He stumbled in ‘Reebok’ sneakers, a few sizes too large. Hi-fipeople, Leela knew, didn’t mix name brands. Further, each time they met Tinkoo pretended they hadn’t before, to put her in her place, Leela assumed; to suggest her insignificance in his relationship with her ‘jaan se pyari jigri dost’. Her best friend, more precious than life. It was his way of insinuating that she never came up in his conversations with Priya and so it was hard to remember she existed.

  One afternoon Tinkoo went too far, asking Leela toothily, ‘Tera admi kaun?’ Who’s your pimp?

  I got to know Tinkoo over a game of teen patti.

  Priya introduced us and she made clear that should I have any questions, I should keep them brief. She pointed out that the last time I had met one of her friends, he had died shortly after. ‘I’m not saying it’s your fault,’ she conceded. ‘But when you next visit Haji Malang, why not beg Haji to reveal your deficiency? Then one of the sadhu-bhais can recommend for you a lucky stone.’

  Then I won’t go around killing people?

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pleased. Finally, I was on the uptake! ‘Then you’ll be safe to talk to.’

  Tinkoo laughed affectionately. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘She’s not as khadoos as she looks!’

  Tinkoo was a lanky teenager I assumed to be about Priya’s age. He had wide brown eyes, a horsey face and a pierced eyebrow which was barely visible under his shiny ‘flick’, as he referred to it.

  Not only was he unafraid of death, he confided, there was very little he was afraid of. Why would he worry? Know his past?

  Priya rolled her eyes. ‘He loves to talk,’ she sneered.

  Tinkoo came from a line of famous pickpockets. His father had been a respected chakri ka kalakar, a pickpocket artist, who worked the trains on the 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. shift. He was so gifted he could switch between the roles of a machine and his assistant, the thekbaaz, on instinct. His favourite mission, as Tinkoo called it, was performed with his close friend Uncle Papoo. As an ‘invalid’ on crutches Tinkoo’s father would fall as though pushed, and as he cried out in anguish apparently unable to gather his crutches, Uncle Papoo would pick the pockets of the crowd that had quickly gathered—not always, Tinkoo pointed out as though in justification—to help.

  One night Tinkoo’s father didn’t come home. Tinkoo and his mother wanted to believe that he had got held up at work, but that excuse soon rang hollow. Tinkoo’s mother got tired of waiting and one day she left. She had found a man, she mentioned to Tinkoo on her way out. He would look after her, not to worry.

  Tinkoo was seven, maybe eight, possibly even nine.

  Like the other unwanted children, and perhaps because he was his father’s son, Tinkoo gravitated towards the nearest railway station—there was food to scavenge, people to rob. Yes, the station was full of thieves, and by thieves he meant boys like him but older, boys who thought it their right to steal from him because when they had b
een small, they had been stolen from too. So what? The station was a microcosm of the world outside. If you couldn’t survive on a platform, what chance would you have in Bombay city?

  Tinkoo hung around the big dadas, the thugs who ran the best scams in the station. They offered him protection and he ran their errands for spare change. In time, he made enough to move on. He was in touch with a distant relative who had made good and on his advice moved to Mira Road, attaching himself to Rassbery, where his relative worked as a manager. Tinkoo worked too, he worked the customers most drunk and disoriented. He would sell them marked-up cigarettes and in the process steal their phones, wallets and watches. If they were real drunk he would relieve them of their jacket, socks and shoes and hawk these items outside Mira Road railway station.

  When dance bars were banned, Tinkoo decided to take advantage of the times and make serious money.

  ‘Growing up on the platform two whisperings I always heard,’ Tinkoo said. ‘“Ai, ladki mangta hai?” and “Hame ladki mangta hai.” Do you want a girl? Yes, I want a girl. And so I knew that the best bijniss to get into was the bijniss of women. Because everyone, even hi-fi men, even men with girlfriends they love, want sex from the street. They think it zabardast. And they’re willing to pay for it.’

  Every evening around 7 p.m., Tinkoo and Priya took the train from Mira Road to the suburb of Andheri. At Andheri station, Tinkoo picked up his friend’s auto-rickshaw on hire and drove with Priya to Juhu beach. It was poorly lit, densely crowded and thrived with sex workers. While Priya prepped herself, powdered her face and so on, Tinkoo solicited. ‘I walk up and down as though I’m waiting for someone,’ he explained. ‘But what I’m really watching for is a man with a certain kind of look. A look of desperation, desperation for sex. When I see one, I jump. “Ladki?” I ask. If he asks how much, I say, “Depends on how much you want to enjoy.” We agree on a price, nothing less than three hundred and fifty for one time, with condom, shirt and pants on, if you want alcohol bring your own but share with my Priya—she is, after all, going to give you full pleasure. We proceed to the auto-rickshaw. I drive slowly, but keep to the extreme left so that Priya isn’t disturbed by the thought that people can see her. She’s a very “sensitize” girl. She feels bad if people see her at work. And why shouldn’t she? She has a good “repute”.’

  ‘Good repute,’ snorted Apsara, ‘says the dalal.’

  ‘Dalal? I’m a secretary,’ Tinkoo fretted. ‘Like in Bollywood!’

  ‘Do you know how Bollywood works?’ he asked me. ‘There are secretaries—it’s a real job I tell you! Every big actor has a secretary. The secretary gets the actor films; a big secretary will get an actress like Aishwarya Rai a big film. In the same way, in Mira Road, I, as Priya’s secretary, promise to get her kustomers. But not any kustomer, mind you. I guarantee the best of kustomers, the Karan Johar of kustomers!’

  Priya snorted. ‘Karan Johar!’

  Leela laughed with her. ‘Why Karan Johar? Why not Shah Rukh Khan?’

  Tinkoo glowered. ‘What’s so funny about “secretary”?’

  The word ‘secretary’ made me think of Raj, who I hadn’t heard about in a while. I asked Priya about him.

  ‘Raj likes to eat and drink well,’ Priya said, her attention on the card game. ‘I could no longer afford to treat him.’

  ‘You spoiled him,’ scolded Apsara, throwing down a card. ‘Every day mutton, every day fish. Did he even know the value of the food you were feeding him? Huh! So stupid boy must have thought the fish swam directly from the sea on to his plate.’

  ‘After I lost my job he supported me for a few days,’ Priya said. ‘And then he said to me, even though he was living in my flat, “You think this is a dharamshala? Do what you want, I need five hundred rupees from you per day. Paise mangta hai toh mangta hai.”’ I need money means I need money.

  ‘He was a perfectly good fellow before he met you,’ said Apsara, her brow furrowed. ‘He had a job! You girls spoil all the good men with your ways and your money. You fill them with greed. Now look at him! No better than a footpath ka goonda running after any randi who will have him and on whose money he can eat. Khana, daru peena, masti karna, that’s his life! Thanks to you!’

  ‘I couldn’t come up with a hundred, let alone five. And so one day he said to me, “I’m getting bore of you,” and I haven’t seen him since.’

  ‘Haven’t seen him since!’ Apsara glared. ‘He started beating you because you stopped giving him money, why don’t you say so? Admit he drank and beat you, where’s the shame? Admit it!’

  ‘Everyone drinks!’ Priya snapped, refusing to meet Apsara’s eye. ‘Everyone beats!’

  ‘But he beat you like you were a dog!’

  Priya turned to me. ‘I tried to make money so he would stay.’

  How? I asked.

  ‘I tried to do dalali for myself—but zero, it gave me zero income. So I asked the other girls for advice. My friend Poonam had a good spot in Santacruz, in front of the children’s park, do you know the one with the giant plane? Opposite the police station? She felt safe she said, as long as she paid the police on time. She would share her place with me—no police, no pimp, no problem. I went with her.’

  ‘Such a sad story,’ said Apsara. ‘Every time I think about it I want to cry.’

  ‘Then cry!’ Leela slapped a card down.

  ‘What’s the purpose?’ Apsara clawed back. ‘Has she not walked down that gully already?’

  ‘You know best a woman can’t live in peace!’

  ‘She fed him!’

  ‘But first he fed her!’

  ‘Huh! Ten years ago he fed her for a few days. And didn’t she feed him since, like he was a king—Mira Road ka Shahenshah?’

  ‘She loved him mummy! How is this her fault?’

  ‘I won’t say!’

  They were like junkies suffering withdrawal.

  Tinkoo looked worriedly from mother to daughter and came quickly to a decision. ‘I have a meeting,’ he announced, flicking.

  He shook hands with me, nodded at the others and hastily slipped out of the door.

  So, what happened? I turned to Priya.

  She shook her head, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  It does to me.

  ‘It’s no breaking news.’

  I don’t mind.

  ‘What’s to tell?’ Priya shrugged. ‘Poonam said she would accompany me until I got confident. But I told her, “What to worry? I’m not attending a surprise birthday party.” And I was all right the first day and the second. Then on the third day around 8 p.m. a taxi pulled up and in the back seat was a man, young and well spoken—so don’t blame me Aunty! He said to me, “Jaane ka?” Naturally I replied, “That’s why I’m standing here.” We decided on Guru Lodge in Khar. Poonam said, “I’ll come with you!” But I was feeling confident-like, so I said, “Why bother?” I thought she wanted a cut because she had helped me out and because the man looked like he was from a good family. He was in a taxi. He seemed educated. You’ll laugh now, but my first thought was: “How to get this shiny mister to fall in love with me?” Ha. Anyway, Poonam insisted and she got in. Barely fifty feet down the road, the man asked the driver to stop and four more men jumped into the taxi. The man stuck a knife into my side and warned me not to shout. The taxi driver pretended he was blind. Poonam said straight off, “I have a son. Rape me, ten times rape me, but don’t snatch my life.” As if they were after her life. Never mind Khar, they drove for two hours, all the way to a lodge in Aksa Beach. The entire night they drank and raped us. We didn’t get a minute’s rest. I managed to call the reception, but the person who answered said to me, “You came from the road, no? Why don’t you take your problems back there?”’

  ‘What had she done to deserve this?’ Apsara said, scanning the cards in her hand. ‘Nothing?’ she asked, picking one.

  Priya ignored her. ‘Do you know what I call that night? Bhagwan ki dua. I know of a dhandewali who was picked up like this by ten men. Ten! Te
n men cannot rent one room. They went to the closest jungle. They raped her. After they finished, they raped her with beer bottles. Then they left her to die.’

  Apsara looked up. ‘Don’t talk of unholy things.’

  ‘It’s not unholy if it’s true.’

  ‘Girls are dying,’ Apsara said to me, lowering her voice like she was sharing a confidence.

  I nodded. In recent, unrelated incidents two bar dancers had died in a single week. Meena Ramu T. had been twenty-two when she hung herself. Bilkish Sahu had been twenty-four and pregnant with her second child. The press speculated that both deaths were connected to the women’s recent unemployment due to the ban.

  ‘Why are you scared of death?’ Leela said to her mother, curiously.

  ‘Talk of death like you’re talking about lunch, why don’t you?’ Apsara hissed.

  ‘You are scared of everything,’ Leela concluded. ‘Darpok,’ she whispered behind her cards.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Priya. ‘That’s when I decided I wouldn’t work alone. Better to work with a boy, a Tinkoo-type boy, than to work as an alone girl in this city.’

  I asked Priya if she would talk to someone about what had happened. I had a rape counsellor in mind, a doctor. She dismissed me. Apsara and Leela continued with their card game as though they hadn’t heard.

  But even I knew better than to suggest a visit to the police. Priya and Leela had always feared them, but since she had begun working with Tinkoo, Priya paid the police hafta without them having to ask for it. She was now a sex worker and sex work was technically illegal. ‘They told me to buy a notebook,’ she said to me, ‘and every time I submit hafta to make sure they sign in it, so they cannot force me to pay them more than once a week. They’re fair-minded, they said. No exploitation.’

  The payment was to avoid arrest and that was all Priya could buy, for no policeman would let pass an opportunity to ask in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘Baigan lo aur ghusa dena!’ Shove a brinjal inside!