Ban or not, Mumbai’s orchestra 'dance’ bars have long been in business as usual

This new bar was to have a filmi theme, pictures of film stars everywhere. There would be different halls for the dancers, each with a distinct decor. There was going to be a Mughal-e-Azam room, and a DDLJ room.”

— “Sacred Games”, Vikram Chandra

If bar owners and dancers are jubilant about the Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday to uphold the Bombay High Court’s 2006 verdict to allow dance bars to reopen, then it is not evident at a bar next to a famous restaurant in one of the most expensive suburbs in Mumbai that evening. There are not more than eight drinkers, all male, when this reporter walks in, only to be greeted by a stage with an ‘orchestra’ and a curiously placed couch next to the singers. This bar has just one hall and nothing like a Mughal-e-Azam or Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge room.

Patron as Entertainer

Two visibly drunk men, likely in their late 40s, appear enthralled by two singers lip-synching to an eminently forgettable Salman Khan number. While the female singer croons “Humko pyaar hua”, one of the two men signals to her that he can’t afford to be in love, with her that is, and chuckles. For the next 20 minutes, this portly man holds everyone’s attention if not with his pelvic thrust at least with his knowledge of lyrics of almost every song.

No sooner is this reporter told there is “no dance, only orchestra” by a waiter than a diminutive girl in a red sari, worn suggestively low on her waist, walks in to stand next to the stage. Within minutes, she is joined by four of her companions, all clothed in saris of starkly different colours. They are all given ID cards by the manager, who says the cards are to show the cops that the girls work at this bar.

Except when they walk up to a patron to take money, the girls all do the same things: scan the bar, run their hands through their long, unnaturally silky hair, and then fiddle with their phablets. They are not ready to dance yet simply because no one is willing to pay them enough.



When Rs 10 Became Rs 20

The place fills up slowly and a heavyset man walks up to the manager and asks angrily why the women are not dancing. The manager quickly directs the girl in the red sari to dance in front of the man and his associates. Soon, Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes are exchanged for crisp Rs 20 notes.

In 2005 — in another instance of surging inflation — the most common dance bar currency denomination was Rs 10. A senior staffer now does what is singularly the most distinctive act of a dance bar — tossing money, with the notes forming a chain in mid-air, on the dancer moving to a song from Rowdy Rathore. A colleague of hers replaces her after 10 minutes and gets the same reception.