For Bengal dancers in Mumbai, SC verdict is best Puja gift ever

KOLKATA: When Kajari (name changed) left her Ranaghat home and landed in Mumbai, she turned into Nisha. A former bar dancer, Nisha is now a crooner at Hotel Nityanand.
The Supreme Court verdict striking down the ban on dance bars is the best Puja gift she could have asked for. Not just Kajari, the 15,000-odd girls from Bengal who had relocated to Mumbai to make a career as bar dancers, cheered and distributed sweets on Thursday after the judgment.Nobody in Kajari’s village knows of her profession.
“We were very poor. My father never earned much and whatever little he did was spent on my mother’s treatment. But my mother died of an undiagnosed illness,” Kajari said. So, after her Madhyamik examination, she decided to try her luck at earning a living in Mumbai. “Once in Mumbai, I landed at a dance bar. Nobody really wants to join this profession. But once into the trade, I earned well enough to send home Rs 10,000 every month for the education of my brother and sister.”
But luck betrayed her again and the dance bars closed down. Kajari took to crooning, others waited tables at the same restaurants where once men threw wads of notes at them. “There were many girls who went off to work in bars in the Gulf countries. Those who couldn’t stay back in Mumbai returned to Kolkata. Some, I’ve heard, are now in Sonagachhi,” said chairman of the Dance Bar Association, Bharat Singh Thakur, who once ran six bars in Mumbai.
Uday Sharma, who converted two of his dance bars into restaurants, is convinced that the Supreme Court verdict will again result in an exodus of girls from Bengal to Mumbai. “When dance bars weren’t banned, these girls would earn anything between Rs 25,000 and Rs 35,000 per month. Now their incomes are down to Rs 12,000-15,000. The new verdict is a ray of hope for these girls,” Sharma said.
The last few years have been tough for Kajari and her friends. “From living in a single room, I went to sharing a room with 10 girls. Mukh bujhe sojyo korechhi. Hothat kore rojgar kome gelo. Barite kauke eta bolteo partam na (I suffered in silence. I didn’t have money and yet couldn’t share my troubles with my family.) Then, I took up crooning,” she said. Varsha Kale, president of the Bharatiya Bar Girls’ Union, is hopeful that life will look up for the girls once the bars reopen. “We have fought a long battle. The girls have already suffered a lot. They should have the right to earn a respectable living,” Kale said.
Kajari, too, is hopeful. In between changing houses, she lost her ghagra cholis. “Nothing remains. I will either have to get something stitched or switch to wearing saris while performing. It has been six years since I danced at a bar,” she said, hoping that things will look up now.