Tales from Behind the Bar

She already hated me. Pooja Devi’s eyes were like those of an animal that has been shot dead. Their blankness resonated with a just-killed ferocity. Her kurta hung on her like a sheath; there was a string of large beads around her neck that fell limply over what once must have been breasts. There was a challenge in her voice, and I could imagine her covering the distance of the table that separated us to slap me. She had a reason. I was making her regurgitate forgotten memories.

She is a memory. In the last few days, the dance bars of Mumbai have been in the news. The state government has ordered them to be shut down for corrupting people and running prostitution rackets. The bar dancers have come out in the streets to protest, some with the ends of their sarees covering their faces.

I cannot imagine Pooja Devi covering her face; of course, she did not have the honorific ‘Devi’, goddess, attached to her name then. She was just Pooja, a woman thrust into the murky world where she tried to make the best of what she had. “I have always been comfortable with whatever I did; I have managed to save my own life. You cannot trust anyone. A man who was like an uncle to me, he wanted me in bed in return for monetary help. I danced in the beer bar because I had to. These men think a woman is ‘jooti ke neechey’. But I fought. At the bar I broke a bottle and stood in front of one man’s table. I did not see any reason to do what they wanted me to do.”

She wasn’t there out of choice, but once in the dim lights, with innuendo-laden music from scratched cassettes filling the room, she tried to use her classical dance training. People were hankering for something else. She left, seeking once again a new life. Predators were lying in wait. She hardened, the beauty dimmed.

As she recounted these episodes, there were times I did not know whether to believe her. There was urgency in her voice. She brought out old pictures to convince me of her looks. She was indeed beautiful in them. I nodded my head, I agreed. When did I ever doubt? Or was I unknowingly appraising her, to see her past in her desultory present?

She was sharp, her mental claws on the ready. Was she always like that? “I had my feet in the clouds. Yet, I had normal, everyday dreams. I wanted a home and luxuries. My father never taught me how to buy coriander and potatoes.” Then, in the marketplace of life, Pooja was thrust. Being rich and tough made it easier.

Her lawyer father had wanted to project his dreams on her, but she was obsessed with herself. She opened a beauty parlour and tried to make the world into her own reflection. Just as suddenly, she got married at 19. The woman who prided herself on her loveliness left her husband cold. She played a temptress, but beyond two children nothing came of it. Emotionally bruised and battered, she left.

I asked about her children. She snapped: “There is no love left in me. If I were to see a child crying, I won’t feel anything.” She was willing to say no more.

I think about the stories of those poor bar dancers who talk about how they have to work to provide for their families of little children with nameless fathers. Pooja was caught in a time-warp. “I could have been a nice bholi Gujarati girl, eating mithai and doing what I was told to do.” Her first rebellion was to work as a receptionist for a while. Then she went to Delhi where she studied astrology, became an acharya (one who knows all there is to the subject), left for Hardwar to seek sanyas, leaving all worldly desires. But some holy men did not leave her alone. “One of the sadhus tried to force himself on me. I told him if I wanted to I could have got ten men out in the real world. He tied me up, saying that I would give in. I was saved in time.”

She ran back to the city that had given her wings, but the sky had changed. She was expecting things to be like old times and when it did not quite turn out that way, she started experimenting in danger zones. That is how she landed up in a beer bar breaking a bottle: her small attempt to change, to sift, even when faced with barriers. Where did she ultimately belong? And did she truly belong or was life a series of bitter happenings replayed to suit the inner need for the only solution left - self-pity?

It was an agonising wait for a reply as I watched her mouth twist. In a gruff voice she finally said, “If anyone calls me bechari, I get very angry. They say, oh, she is alone, she has no husband, as though the husband is some bhagwan. And then they try to buy you – for 400-500 rupees, never more. I think a woman must learn to wipe her own tears. I don’t want to be under anyone’s obligation. I have attained salvation. I have got myself. And my conscience does not bite me.”

She returned to astrology, telling other people their future. What about hers?

“It feels like my story has ended.”

And for the first time, her eyes came alive.

* * *
Sushila’s eyes were averted. Her back was blotched. There was nothing sensual or even clean about it. The photographer was adjusting the lights as she pulled her elbows close to her and her head bowed down in shame. Today, she would be among the 70,000 people working in bars left without jobs.

I had met her a few years ago. When I was told that she waited tables at a seedy joint in Mahim, I had expected to see someone else. I did not imagine I’d watch a back with large red spots and grime in the folds. She had walked in wearing a grey polyester salwaar-kameez. After we were introduced, I saw how reticent she was when she removed her kameez, her mouth holding back even a shy smile. I wanted to leave the room, but her eyes beckoned me to stay. She was doing this photo-shoot, baring a part of herself, for small money. And she trusted the photographer.

Vinay had befriended her. As he said, “Once I had gone to this bar. There she was, quite different from the others. It was obvious she needed the money badly. With the exception of a couple of goons, she told me most of the guys wanted to help her for nothing in return.”

Wasn’t she curious about the Vinays of the world who talk about the futility of life, usually someone else’s? What makes these men expose themselves, in a way, to some sort of labelling? Is it loneliness? Or the need to drink in a place where no one asks you why you are doing so? Is there a sense of oneness with the others who patronise such places?

Sometimes a conversation is struck up with the man at the adjacent table. Rarely are names given. “But once,” says Vinay, “I paid for the guy sitting next to me, I was very happy, I had got a new contract and there was no one to celebrate with. I live alone in the city, and since I was new to the game I did not want to reveal too much of my plans to acquaintances.”

Does not this who-cares-where-I-come-from ambience negate the very need forced upon by urban living -- the need to be not just a speck of dust on the beach? Or a ticket-holding nobody in an auditorium? Isn’t it why these men have shunned the avenues of entertainment that force them to look at characters rather than real people? Or is this probing too deep, and all a guy wants is a quick peg?

“It started as a quick peg on my way to a meeting, but now I choose to be here rather than at a meeting!” says Vinay. He spends an average three hours at the bar, almost everyday. He is not an alcoholic, he assures. He drinks slowly, and thinks a lot. “Yes, you are right. Why don’t I go for a play or a movie? I really need to come here, sometimes with friends, or else alone. I watch people and wonder about them.” Strange, since he has been shirking ’unreal’ people, he ends up imagining about the real ones anyway.

As night descends, a new story unfolds.