In 2005, there were 1,500 dance bars in Bombay, so called because they employed women to dance to popular music. Bar dancers could earn a lot of money compared to women in other traditional female jobs outside the sex industry, such as cleaners. Many of them also slept with men for money, but because her job was dancing not sex, a bar dancer could also see herself as infinitely superior to sex workers, whether street prostitutes, those working in brothels or call girls. Despite the book's subtitle, Beautiful Thing is largely the story of one dancer, Leela, through the eyes of Faleiro who met and befriended her in 2005, shortly before the government shut down ...  Read the complete review

~Yes sir, she can boogie~ 'Beautiful Thing - Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars' by Indian writer and journalist 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 firmly on the wrong side of the tracks which reveals the power of friendship, honour and companionship which often 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 ...  Read the complete review