Saturday, June 09, 2012

Dance bar

I went to a dance bar last weekend and to my surprise, I was the only one who was shocked to see what I saw. Ok, so I had never been to a dance bar before and I wanted to see what its like. I saw women sitting in a queue, in tight flashy clothes, covering the lower halves of their bodies with a cloth. When their name was called out they would come and perform a dance on a bollywood track, on a stage. It was clearly not a cultural performance, it was not the dance that people were there to sit and appreciate. It was more about the vulgarity of the song and the dance. It was more about some drunk men ogling at the women and their bodies. Apart from thinking about the men there, I also ended up thinking about the women and started imagining about their lives. The lady in the corner was continuously making passes at a gentleman sitting in front. I imagined them meeting outside the bar after a couple of hours and trading money for those 11 minutes of intimacy. There was one girl who looked quite upset while dancing, as if she was not that much into it. I could imagine her doing this for money, maybe she was funding her brothers education. They all looked like lower middle class indian girls. My parents would experience a slight discomfort just by the fact that I was sitting there amongst the audience. Do you think their parents had any clue that their daughters were doing this? Did they even know? Its quite possible that they think their daughters are doing a respectable job here, little do they know that there are some drunk men buying a dance while their daughters keep their self esteem in the changing room and provide for that father's cancer treatment or that brother's high school fees.. Maybe if I don't go there, that young boy might lose his chance of getting an education, but if I do go there, I am definitely helping that market exist. The market of trading the indian woman's self respect for money.

No comments: