Tales from Behind the Bar

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You ARE probing too deep.People like looking at other people and some probably like looking at or imagining how they`ll look nekkid.So, they go to titty bars.So what?.Go back to writing trite essays maligning India, please.I sincerely hope they`ll reopen the dance bars some day.

does that slime bucket raj thackrey still run a dance bar near haji ali? Drumbeats or something...

Farjana ji,

No `dum` in this article.

Note:

There should have been a footnote to say that the first segment has been published in The Friday Times.

And...nowhere have I said that there is anything wrong with bar dancers. It is obvious that only ignorance can make anyone believe that such bars have naked women.

I am fortunate to have met someone like Pooja and Sushila.

FV,

This is a very thoughtfully written article. It sensitively portrays the two ladies described, both of which would perhaps be stigmatized by the society and considered undesirable.

In particular, Pooja comes across as a reasonably sharp lady who has (had) ambitions. She has an independent streak (e.g., opening a beauty parlor). An early marriage fails despite her trying to save it. She values her independence enough to walk out of it, trying various things. All the time she keeps running into and fighting off predatory males. She is quite a fighter! Her weak spot, of course, is the guilt regarding her children and about the price they had to pay for her own independence. But she is not a quitter and will never yield to self-pity.

Not much is revealed about Sushila, except that she is shy and she felt a degree of trust in you. But Vinay is also an intriguing character and it is difficult to answer what makes him click. In some ways, he reminds me of a couple of the male characters in the TV series “Cheers”. Vinay is a regular businessman of some kind, but when he comes to the bar he talks “about the futility of life, usually someone else’s”.

From my viewpoint (or as per my taste), I would definitely rank this article among one of your best.

I liked it a lot!!


Notes:

[“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. … 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.”]
This quote is very revealing of the person Pooja is, and why she deserves to be respected! Even more revealing is how much it pains her to speak those sentiments (with which she would often have struggled) aloud.

[“It feels like my story has ended.”]
I doubt it. Pooja does not appear to be a quitter.

[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.]
Three hours a day! Denial – that famous trademark of alcoholics!

[“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.”]
If this were quoted out of context, I would have thought you were talking about the chowk. :)

I enjoyed this one, if ``enjoyed`` is the right word.

A few weeks ago I remember listening to a radio program on KPFA about the struggle of lap dancers (as they are referred to here) in San francisco. One thing I remember being discussed was the coercion into sexual acts because the nightly stage fee that they pay the club owners has gone from $25 to $250 in the last 10 years. So while in the past they could take home $100 doing what they signed up for (dance) now if they want to take home the same amount they have to earn more than $250 which does not come from lap dance alone. I am sure the case must be the same in Bombay.

The other thing is that in spite of the fact that the dancers here have been organized under what is called Exotic Dancers Association fighting for their rights for 20 years now, the fact is that social stigma brackets all these professions as sex workers – people who its ok to take advantage of. So even if law is on their side we (police, journalists, public) are more than willing to ignore the whole thing, justifying in our minds, that somehow it must have been their fault. And the victim continues to be victimized.

#8 by trinity on June 2, 2005 2:45pm PT


I am sure the case must be the same in Bombay.


The girls in the dance bars aren`t exactly in their underwear....They are completely dressed...some even in saaris...they aren`t even dancers really....there are usually half a dozen girls dancing on the stage at one time, each shaking her booty for about 1 minute every 5 minutes....

Ferzana Versay

Whilst you dexterously engage us with 2 tales from ``behind the bar`` : that of Pooja`s excellently executed, that of Sushila`s does merit more elucidation from yourself and her character could have been further threaded into the narrative: nonetheless I hereby offer you ``1 tale from the front bar``.

I sit in front of the bar of life Ferzana and my eyes gaze frozenly at empty haunting faces of young Sushila`s in virginal whites and vicarage embroidery affronted by a patriarchal system with a self-styled ``holier-than-thou`` bent sexual morality at its crux. The Pooja`s of this world are condemned far more savagely than the men who use their services. The visage of contradiction has never been so eerie. Its` taste never so sour.

I sit in front of the bar of life Ferzana and notice that the architects of our ``patriarchy`` engage in pedantry: for it is far more easier for them to point the feverish finger at Julia Roberts than the smooth-talking Gigolo Richard Gere ( or should I say Vinay ?) Politicians, priests, private bankers: all remain the ultimate guardians of moral disorder. Their suited smiles, nods and winks are given the freest sexual license. Their cheeks need to be branded with hot iron, otherwise these men with long purses and lose morals will never desist from their vices.

I sit in front of the bar of life Ferzana, as an events manager, and ubiquitously meet interesting people in London`s bars. I have rubbed the occasional shoulder with

princes and presidents,

popes and princesses.

But it is the prostitutes and paupers

Who are the most street-savvy and work the hardest to eke out a living. I realise from the very front stage of the bar that the bar-tenders of life need to soul-search and remedy the deeper parameters of gender inequity, law and morality, bonded labour, societal double-standards and only then will there be a gleam gushing out of jaded aspirations.

Until then life, and its bar

Is merely a Perverse Pandemonium

*Ferzana
This seemed forced very unlike you must say.

FV,
Why do you think bar dancers are any different than other workers in large cities of the third world countries? Do they get special write ups because they do something exotic work? Why is their misery any different than the shoeshine boys on the streets of Bombay?
Everyone has to sell something to make a living. Journalists sell stories, businessmen sell merchandise, and even housewives have to be ready to sell some smiles to have a happy life.
This world would not move if something is not sold every second. Why is it important to talk about people who sell bodies? What makes them unique or different? They have a profession whether some like it or not and there are going to be some professional hazards and difficulties that they have to go thru. Day laborers also sell bodies to make money why no write up for them?.

Rarely do I see any write up on lap dancers or escorts in the west. They have been accepted as what they are and general public just does not care. Those who care about them show up at the go-go club.

“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?”

There is too much “English” here form me to follow you. A little less would probably help me. My guess.. you think people in urban life want some recognition. That does not seem right. In the urban life, people disappear they become mote and they like it. That is the beauty of the urban life one is relieved from the “recognition” pressure, expectations and living up to something…


#9 by arjun_m
Sounds like you spent considerable time in beer bars. What are you driving these days a rickshaw or a pimpmobile?

#8 by trinity
Your knowledge about lap dancers and beer bar dancers is obviously elementary!

I wonder why this piece is considered “unlike” me…when I write opinion pieces I am told I do not know the smell of the street…when I go out in the streets, it is…

#6 by BeeJay:

Thank you. Re. Sushila, I thought the fact that she was shy would convey that not much would be revealed about her! She did not trust me, but Vinay…and yet she wanted me to stay around when she was baring herself.

However, I must say I was planning to write an i-log on her, little things that did not fit in with the article. I could have given descriptions that would seem very patronising. But she filled me with such deep guilt as I stood there watching the shoot. And I knew that she would be getting very little for it. I wondered whether I could give her some money, but I did not want to hurt her pride…there was a good deal of confusion in my mind. So I decided to ask her to join me for lunch, saying that I was very hungry and had no company. For all those who seem to glamourise bar dancers/maids, she was an anti-thesis. An humble Udipi restaurant to seemed an indulgence to her.

Your inputs on Pooja…
[“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. … 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.”
This quote is very revealing of the person Pooja is, and why she deserves to be respected! Even more revealing is how much it pains her to speak those sentiments (with which she would often have struggled) aloud.]

Needless to say, I feel very close to her words…I wrote about how she seemed to want to slap me; I feel like that with clairvoyants…how we hate our hurts to lie exposed…

[“It feels like my story has ended.”
I doubt it. Pooja does not appear to be a quitter.]

ONE story has ended…she would have another one.

[“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.”
If this were quoted out of context, I would have thought you were talking about the chowk. :)]

Hmm…I’d say we come here alone, and we rarely watch people; we brand them and wonder why they are not what we want them to be…
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#10 by ozerkhalid:

Thank you for the engaging post. I have already explained why Sushila was not fleshed out more.

[I sit in front of the bar of life Ferzana and notice that the architects of our ``patriarchy`` engage in pedantry: for it is far more easier for them to point the feverish finger at Julia Roberts than the smooth-talking Gigolo Richard Gere ( or should I say Vinay ?)]

Isn’t it interesting that it is the gigolos who take charge of the fairytales and the women are left with glass slippers?

[Their cheeks need to be branded with hot iron, otherwise these men with long purses and lose morals will never desist from their vices.]

Are all vices abusive to others? And would not such branding legitimise the men as indeed the ones with “long purses” that are so prized? I’d say if a vice does not exploit another (everything is exploitative in a fashion), then it is merely a few loose nuts and bolts in the psyche.

[I sit in front of the bar of life Farzana, as an events manager, and ubiquitously meet interesting people in London`s bars. I have rubbed the occasional shoulder with princes and presidents,
popes and princesses. But it is the prostitutes and paupers
Who are the most street-savvy and work the hardest to eke out a living.]

If one is in the streets, would not one become more street-savvy than the rest? When the blood is blue and the wine is rose-hued, eking out a living ought not to even be a consideration. Alas, in the occasional London bar I have been to I spotted no popes and presidents…or perhaps I was too busy rubbing shoulders with a leather-backed chair, trying to remove the remnants of guilt…the “aspirations” had already been “jaded”.

[Until then life, and its bar Is merely a Perverse Pandemonium]

Pandemonium comes with inbuilt contrariness or it would no pandemonium be…unless of course you meant vicious pandemonium…

But stop I must, lest I be accused of too much English…
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#12 by HP:

Just want to pick a fight?!

Where have I made it seem like exotic work? Where have I underlined their misery as opposed to those of other ‘labourers’? (Btw, I have worked among street children, so I know the difference, if not of degree then of kind.) Where have I taken a moral stand on what they do?

Do you realise that the stimulus for doing this story is the fact that the govt. in Maharashtra has ordered the shutdown of the bars…recently child labourers have been rescued (some have already escaped from the remand homes), and there are plenty of write-ups. There will be. There should be.

Had these two women in my article become ‘famous victims’ you would not have wondered why I was recounting their stories…they would be seen as gutsy, as rebels against society. Why does a rape victim or an abused child become an ‘issue’? Their story is being ‘sold’ too, if one wants to be cynical.

[Rarely do I see any write up on lap dancers or escorts in the west. They have been accepted as what they are and general public just does not care.]

In our part of the world, people do not care (as in, are not concerned) and these women are not accepted. But, do not forget the reams that have been written on Heidi Fleiss and her girls in the West.

[“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?”
There is too much “English” here form me to follow you. A little less would probably help me. My guess.. you think people in urban life want some recognition. That does not seem right. In the urban life, people disappear they become mote and they like it. That is the beauty of the urban life one is relieved from the “recognition” pressure, expectations and living up to something…]

We shall have to stick to English…perhaps a little less…anonymity does not mean being relieved of ‘recognition’. The urbanite may visit brothels as an anonymous being, but will brag about his ‘conquests’. Get the drift?
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Thanks for the other comments.
- - -
Chowk staff:
The oversight was mine…but thank you for rectifying it.

Re: # 14

dost-mittar:

The point here is not of demand and supply, rather of workers rights. The fees are illegal to begin with but these workers are unable to exercise their rights because law enforcement looks the other way. And my guess is that the fees as well as the conditions vary from bar to bar.

Dear Farzana:

Welocme back, journalist.

Three thumbnail sketches. Pooja`s is the best, the others are too brief. One would like to know more, especially about Sushila who might be more typical of her sisters than Pooja, who seems to be a master (mistress?) of her destiny. I have a feeling that if you interviewed her ex-husband, it is he who might come across as `bechaara`.

trinity:

This is quite a revelation. Is the supply of lap dancers so large that club dancers get paid to ``hire`` them?

#14

trinity``

I meant club owners get paid to hire them, not club dancers.