Life after dance bar ban

Without Prejudice

Author :  Devasis

Publisher : Niyogi, Rs 450

What would have happened to the dancers of Mumbai bars when they were shut in 2005? Devasis gives a heart-warming and unbiased account in this book, writes JIGYASA HASIJA

Vivid, haunting and thought-provoking, Without Prejudice makes for a good afternoon read. Be prepared to go down memory lane; 13 years ago in 2005: The year when dance bars in Mumbai were shut at the stroke of midnight on India’s 59th Independence Day after policymakers became increasingly “concerned” about female trafficking and preserving cultural morality. Law enforcers and custodians of tradition might have had good intentions as dance bars are often seen as indecent and improper. In theory, ideologies such as these read as righteous, but then again in a world so grey, living in black and white cannot work. Searching amongst the annals of history for the same, Devasis seems to have come across unsullied facts which will astonish the reader. Earlier this year, dance bars came into the limelight again when the conditional licence of Mumbai’s three legitimate beer bars was cancelled. Like the wise men say, there are no coincidences and everything happens by association.

In his first attempt at fiction writing Devasis gives the reader important aspects which differentiate an ephemeral best-seller from a canonised work: A lasting and impressionable tale, answers to historical doubts, and open-endedness. It is carved into three intense parts, each illustrating a different part of a dancer’s life: Initiation, Impression and Inclusion. Her journey from Mirpura’s Munia to Mumbai’s Pallavi Singh, to an illicit princess does, at times, become theatrical. Yet it is not legitimacy Devasis is concerned about; he has attempted to reclaim the mujra dancers’ identity by telling their story via Munia. The dance bars of Mumbai are practically a tart ingredient of its urban mythos. They are perpetually visited by various men. Mujrawalis are also human, not pieces of meat, hamstrung by norms which apply to a patriarchal and hierarchical culture. To make his point, the author paints a disconcerting reality about Chambal’s females shoved into prostitution, displayed as dancers to be ogled at while the parasitical men of the family leech off their earnings. The scene then shifts to chaotic frenzied Bombay of the 1970s. Sin is labelled transgressive while politics becomes “ethical”. Cautious plus candid, Without Prejudice is an unusual journey into candour, bitterness, even honourable killing.

The book probes the grassroots of the evolution of dance girls, and how the sudden closure of dance bars had robbed a portion of the populace of an honourable way of work. Dance performances nonetheless continue till date in opulent hotels, confirming a clear divide between two sections of society. There is an effort to spark a feminist debate, but it is doused by the novel’s regulated narrative.

Although, Pallavi does not seek pity, she yearns for true love. Undoubtedly, she combines her independence — economic and otherwise — which bar dancing provides. Despite the fact that she does not disparage her profession, she reinforces conventional marital ambitions — a home, a husband, and children. Such middle-class aspirations draw the reader into her fold and empathise with Pallavi as a simple Indian girl. She knows, nevertheless, that it would be well-nigh impossible for an honourable man to accept a mujrawali.

This heart-warming tale willy-nilly also focuses attention on how a dance bar operates as an industry. From the doorkeeper who filters customers based on whether or not he will spend, the steward who guides the man to the table and gets fat tips, the singer who plays songs if given money, to last but not the least, the bar girls, who are trained to analyse then pick clients carefully, it’s a business. Certainly, a very profitable one.

There are confoundities though. Misha Oberoi’s book cover leaves little to the imagination but is languid and does not do justice to the vivid story. Pallavi’s conversation with a father-figure like Rajkumar about what she should do for a living after the dance bar closes, is more sultry than sensible. Similarly, a few of the characters having preconceived notions about Roy and Pallavi’s marriage tiptoes ridiculous fantasy. Throughout, Pallavi is described as brave, beautiful and intelligent; save four instances, the author does not flesh out (pun unintended) the protagonist’s character as such. We don’t get to know any other dance girls which makes for inadequate and narrow reading. The initial pages make for an interesting read, yet, it is only after Roy enters the story does the pace quicken. For instance, his curiosity about the “why” of the dance bar culture also provokes the reader to search for a valid answer:

“As he watched, Roy felt questions rise unbidden in his mind. How did such beautiful girls land up in a dance bar? Popular belief held that most of these girls had been forced into the profession, owing to physical threats or economic compulsions. But what compelling circumstances made them stay? While interacting with so many customers every day, they could reach out for help. Did they do that? What was the pattern of trafficking? How did the supply chain work? Roy was not convinced that brute force alone could be the reason why the girls adhered to the system…”

With a title as earnest as Without Prejudice, the author petitions to the reader to look at Pallavi impartially, to judge her on the basis of her heart and not her profession, to shed preconceived notions about maligned women and detach themselves from bias. Devasis’ painstaking research enlightens the reader about the categorising of some tribes as offenders by the English in 1871, for their profit, which in turn overturned paterfamilias on its head. Money was earned by women forced into the flesh trade. Indeed, he makes a statement “without prejudice,” which in court implies an oral declaration made as a sincere endeavour to resolve the argument but is not acceptable as proof. India too needs to think differently about these women if its intention is to firstly, rehabilitate them and their families, and secondly, to educate the populace about them. Rather than point fingers at them, it is important to either give them alternate employment, or to make them literate. The dancers would be willing to leave this job, and thousands depend on these beer bars for their survival. It is not as if working in a respectable office is entirely safe for females. Day after day, there are endless cases about how women are sexually harassed by their superiors. The world taunts but doesn’t feed them.

This is not the first book which discusses about a woman working in a dance bar, and wont certainly be the last. Devasis leaves it to the reader’s sensibility to decide what lies ahead for Pallavi: Will she find happiness? Ironically, the qualities of a good wife, which Pallavi seems to have in abundance, are not a requirement for dancing girls. Truly, her name becomes an oak tree, and her honour its eclipse.