Beautiful Thing

by Sonia Faleiro

  Leela would have been happy to be a tourist, her camera slung around her neck. She had no need, she said, to dance to the loud Bollywood music a DJ in a bandana and shades was spinning, to stand under the waterfall in her new swimsuit and black lace leggings, to mirror the couples entwined in the pool—their love, their lust, a tangible thing it was only natural to want for oneself.

  She could be happy, in a quiet, regular way, just being with Shetty.

  ‘If he’d only sat beside me . . .’ Leela sighed. ‘But he was happy with his blue films and beer.’

  When Shetty called Leela out on her glum face, she said what she always said when she didn’t want to admit she felt low.

  ‘I’m expecting my MC,’ she lied.

  Shetty was disgusted.

  ‘Now you’re telling me,’ he roared. ‘What were you doing before you couldn’t open your damn mouth? And what should I do now? Make lollipops of your blood and sell them on the road!’

  ‘Why are you talking to me like this?’ cried Leela.

  Then she shut up.

  Leela was feisty, but she knew Shetty had earned his reputation as a danger admi. He had cracked a bottle on a bar dancer’s head because she refused to go with a Chhota Shakeel man. He had then phoned the Chhota Shakeel man to apologize and to ask which lodge he should have the bleeding, wailing girl sent to.

  ‘It’s okay, durrling, not to worry,’ consoled Leela quickly. ‘We can do it, no problem. You won’t even be able to tell.’

  Shetty closed his eyes. ‘Fucking randi,’ he murmured. ‘You’re all the same you fucking whores. Lies, lies, nothing but lies.’

  ‘How so?’ Leela pouted. ‘Is it my fault?’

  ‘How much money did I put on your cell last week?’ Shetty veered off.

  ‘A thousand,’ admitted Leela in a small voice.

  ‘Then how come two days later when I asked, “Why aren’t you returning my calls?” why did you say “PS, balance khatam”? Why?’ Shetty leaned forward and gripped Leela’s hand. ‘Leela, tell me why.’

  Leela blushed. That was an old trick of hers and she hated to be called out on it. She had a single phone but three SIM cards. Shetty thought she had just the one and as her ‘husband’ had promised to take care of her bills. On the first of every month, he would hand over the amount she asked for. But it must have occurred to him that most months he gave her as much as ten thousand rupees. Either Leela was spending the money ‘talking sexy’ to her customers, or she was spending it on ‘women’s things’—‘abortions and suchlike’.

  Which was it?

  Shetty said he didn’t care who Leela fucked as long as he didn’t hear about it and lose face. Respect was more important to a man than money or power.

  It irked him though that despite all he did for her—he paid for her rent and phone, he bought her lunches and clothes, he even let Leela sweet-talk him into bringing kebabs for Apsara and hadn’t fled when she chewed his ear off about what a good wife Leela would make—even then, mind you, Leela took men when she felt like it.

  When Shetty was in a good mood he could laugh off Leela’s popularity, even feel some pride in it—everyone wanted what he had. He would remind himself that he had, after all, never hired a bar dancer he hadn’t test driven—front and back.

  But when he lost the battle to contain his fiery temper, as now, all he knew was that he was a catch. He was a well-settled family man who owned his own dance bar, made great money and would, any day now, get a designation in the Fight for Rights Bar Owners Association (FRBOA), an informal union of the city’s dance bar owners.

  He deserved better than a woman who would drop her knickers for a five hundred.

  The many beers during the long, hot drive, the embarrassing argument with that young man, so young he reminded Shetty that he was now middle-aged and obviously so, followed by the news that Leela was expecting her period, was simply too much information for Shetty to process. Unable to articulate his frustration at the collapse of a break he had looked forward to all week, he wanted to lean over and slap Leela hard.

  He didn’t like beating women, Shetty said. That was no kalass, he was firm.

  He had slapped his wife once and the memory of that moment made him a smaller man in his own eyes. But violence towards his bar dancers, even if it was only the implication of violence, was unavoidable. Otherwise they would think him soft and cheat him by meeting customers outside Night Lovers so they wouldn’t come in and the girls wouldn’t have to share their collection with Shetty.

  Violence then wasn’t about kalass, it was bijniss. And bijniss was the oil on which his life ran with the middle-class predictability and the comforting security he had, as a child, been taught to aspire to and which, as an adult he had attained with no small amount of perseverance.

  And just at this moment there was something about Leela, his damn bijniss, that made Shetty want to cut her down to size.

  He told me what happened next:

  He wondered how old Leela was. She had been thirteen when they had met, thirteen when he pursued her, fourteen when she agreed to be with him. She had been fourteen when he started looking around, fifteen when he found another ‘wife’ in another dance bar, sixteen when Leela found out and confronted him. She had been sixteen when he swore to be faithful, sixteen when he broke his promise, sixteen when he started looking around again. He hadn’t kept track since.

  But she had been thirteen when she had first laughed at his jokes, thirteen when he had wanted her, thirteen when he swore he would never stop making her laugh.

  At thirteen her teeth had been like a string of Hyderabadi pearls fit for the neck of a queen.

  Shetty smiled in recollection.

  Leela thought it was because he had forgiven her. ‘Get into your nightie!’ she said to herself. ‘Distract him duffer, quick! Make him forget this MC bijniss!’

  Leela returned Shetty’s smile; Shetty’s face closed.

  Her teeth aren’t what they used to be, he thought. Of course, the dance bar will do that to you. Some girls! Their teeth so rotten, it was a wonder they tasted food. And their brains were no less rotten, mind you. Angootha chhaaps! Oh, but Leela. Leelaji could not only write, she could read. Once he had stumbled upon her reading a novel in the make-up room. There were very few things that impressed Shetty. That was one of them. Leela was so smart, just being around her made him feel good about himself. Like an upper-class man, in a top-class joint.

  Of the many bar dancers who had come and gone from Night Lovers, Leela was the one he had worked to convince to stay on. When her attention had threatened to wander he raised her cut of the collection. He allowed her to choose the song she made an entrance to, and in the make-up room she had her own dressing table, her name painted on the side.

  It was a matter of luck, Shetty knew, that Leela had been forced into this line, a line that gnawed into you like you were the marrow in a plate of nalli-nehari, and once you had been chewed through and through, spat you underfoot. And that someone like his Mrs had been born into a good family and so enjoyed every privilege of respectable lineage—a good husband, a good flat, a good vehicle, good children.

  Because the truth was, even in Bombay, that great equalizer, you couldn’t always fight birth. And you certainly couldn’t do it without money and without connections.

  In Bombay, a nobody could die with nothing.

  And in that moment, perhaps in the regret of that moment, Shetty regained his feelings of affection and regard for the young woman before him. And he wished, truly, that Leela—oh, bright as a blade, as quick-witted as a street chokra and as marvellously clever as a Gemini circus magician—had had better luck.

  But she hadn’t.

  And young as she was now, she would not be young forever.

  Shetty was not a cruel man; but he was a man with an eye for beautiful things. There was Twinkle, who was new to Night Lovers and ma ki kasam, she was so sexy. Things had been stressful lately, and he hadn’t had a chance to test drive h
er. But he was tired of hearing about her from other men: ‘Oh that Twinkle such a booty! I fucked her yesterday.’ And of hearing Twinkle talk to the other girls: ‘Saala chutiya! He kept moaning aah! Aah! Aah! Like I was sucking the meat out of his cock. It drove me crazy.’ Clearly, Twinkle was waiting for something better—him!—and he was planning to get started with a bang, maybe take her to Vaishnodevi. He would give her the spiel: ‘My parents died in a car crash when I was a child and I have been mother and father to my siblings for the past twenty years. I go to Vaishnodevi every six months to ask Deviji for strength. Tell me, sister, would you like to join me in prayer?’

  ‘Yes, that would impress her. Why were these girls so taken by God anyway? Was it because God had given them nothing? Yes. Because they had nothing, they had nothing to lose.’

  Shetty couldn’t help but think about the last time he had been to Vaishnodevi. He had gone with Leela.

  ‘All was going well, until I saw my brother-in-law walking ahead of me on the bridge. I ducked and weaved, but that chut chataoing maderchod not only saw me, he came up to me and said, “Hello!” and “Who is this?” about Leela. Of course, I said, “Saala gaandu,” fucking arsehole. I don’t give that bastard any bhav. I paid for his wedding. Let me see that money, then we’ll talk. I said, “Is she your mother? Then why do you care moth-erfucker?” He ran. But of course he told his sister. Setting kharab kar di! He didn’t even wait to get to Bombay; he called her from Vaishnodevi itself. She called me. Straight off I said, “Woman, what woman? Arre that poor widow? The stumbling, bumbling widow who couldn’t manage her belongings? Yes, yes I helped her. What’s wrong with that? Should I have pushed past without a thought? In a place of worship? Tell me?” She hemmed and hawed and so I said, “Mummyji, you believe your good-for-nothing brother who has always been jealous of me or do you believe me? Tell me, tell me now!” What could she say? She started crying, “Of course, I believe you; of course, you’re the only one I trust.”’

  Shetty grinned. He’d fucked that motherfucker good!

  His good humour was restored. He felt his muscles start to relax. He held his hand out to Leela. ‘Sorry baba,’ he said, pulling her on to his lap. Leela fluffed up with pleasure. ‘Let’s break the bed,’ whispered Shetty.

  Leela didn’t dwell on Shetty’s quick change of heart.

  ‘Maybe his nasha wore off?’

  It didn’t matter. He was a man in a hundred. And he made her feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

  { 10 }

  ‘If I fall, who will accept my outstretched hand?’

  Leela returned from Lonavla optimistic about her relationship with Shetty. To her, their weekend away signalled the start of a bright new phase. Surely it was only a matter of time before he suggested she spend the rest of her life with him.

  To make her feelings on the matter clear, Leela no longer went with customers. On the dance floor she became less likely to insinuate the possibility of friendship. If a customer asked for her phone number, instead of stalling, she would reply, in a raised voice and in the hope that Shetty might overhear, ‘My phone number is my husband’s number. Would you like my husband’s number?’

  Leela’s popularity didn’t wane. Her customers thought she was playing them and desired her more than ever. She continued to leave Night Lovers with meaty wedges of one hundred rupee notes tucked into her lucky red bra.

  But Leela could be a soft touch. One day she hinted she had a stalker. He would call at all times and make ‘dirty-dirty’ suggestions. Give me his number, I said. I’ll teach him a lesson! ‘Uff, no!’ she giggled. ‘It’s not so simple. He was my kustomer. Then he got married and I never heard from him again. Chalo, these things happen, no problem. Some kustomers become good boys after settling down. Then it turned out his wife couldn’t have a baby and so he called to me and said, “Why don’t you have it for us, everything paid?”

  ‘“Arre, arre!” I replied. “What do you mean? You have fun and shut your wife up with a baby?” But he said she was insistent and that I had to meet her,’ Leela giggled pridefully, ‘so she could see how pretty I am!’

  I was taken aback. And if you don’t? I asked.

  ‘She’s a cutter baba,’ Leela said. ‘Why do you think I take his calls? Tomorrow if she makes pulao of her wrists, that bhadwa will chase after me.’

  So Leela continued her philanthropic assignations with her former customer, sympathy, not sex, until Priya, with less than kindness in her voice pointed out that the man was fucking her over. ‘It is like sex,’ she stressed. ‘Worse! If he has Leela’s undivided attention, and that too free mein, he can put nazar on her.’

  And then?

  Priya sighed. She’d once said to me, ‘We are same-same you and I. But you can read and write so you think you’re better. But really, you’re not.’

  Now she indulged me. ‘If he puts nazar on her she can get tan, get peeli bimari. Become a kaali billi. She will lose her looks and who will have her then?’

  Purshottam Shetty? I said rebelliously.

  ‘Sure,’ Priya replied, her voice like cream. ‘Because you know so many bar dancers who have married their managers, who now live happily ever after in some 2BHK in Navi Mumbai. Next time, do please introduce me to one of them.’

  True, Shetty wouldn’t leave his wife, even Leela knew that. Theirs had been a match consolidated by astrology, destiny and money. As Leela told it, before Miss Lata had become Mrs Shetty, her family had to prove that they were of the right caste and wealth and that Lata was as willing to commit to Shetty as she had been to God. The Shettys had been assured a car, a fridge, trunks of new clothes and, it went without saying, Lata’s virginity.

  Leela knew Lata had given Shetty children, two sons no less, that they went to an English-medium, had cellphones, liked cola and played cricket on the main road outside the cooperative housing society in which they lived.

  ‘A co-op, imagine it!’

  She knew Shetty was fond of his Mrs and loved his sons because he was eagerly planning their summer vacation. They were going bahar gaon, to Singapore, and the itinerary, Leela said with envy, would include ‘shopping, Chinese eating, and the zoo’.

  Leela knew all of this because she would torment Shetty with questions about his family; ‘poke him’ to use his words. She would eavesdrop on his conversations with his wife and read his text messages as though it was her right as his mistress. Since she was denied legitimacy, believed Leela, Shetty couldn’t possibly deny her this.

  Having gathered her information, Leela had come to this conclusion: to leave Lata would make Shetty a pariah in the Shetty business community. To leave her for a barwali would be interpreted as a sign of perversity. His parents would threaten a double suicide in a public place—a publicly holy place.

  Although Leela dreamt of marrying in a temple, in silk, in gold, her palms embroidered with mehendi, a brilliant line of vermilion parting her hair, the tragic irony was that she had never herself attended such a wedding and drew her references from films (Chandni, starring Sridevi, was a favourite). And so she didn’t fool herself and desire too greatly this one, possibly impossible dream that had so far eluded her and women like her. Instead, she hoped for the next best thing. A ‘love marriage’ in which she would be Shetty’s sole dance bar ‘wife’—not like she was now, but formally, with a party, for hosting a party signified enthusiasm and commitment on Shetty’s part. To celebrate, they would kill chickens and goats and any altu-faltu type who raised timepass objections. They would invite everyone in the line and take lots of photographs, which she would make many copies of, preserving one set in her Hanuman Chalisa and carrying the other, at all times, in her handbag.

  Shetty would continue supporting her financially, obvious.

  Most importantly, she would retire from the line and visit Night Lovers only on special occasions—when a puja was to be conducted, for example. Then she would tuck a Rotomac behind her ear, so no one would mistake her for one of the girls, and wear shiny n
ew sandals under her Kala Niketan chiffon, so it would appear as though she had stepped from her flat into Shetty’s Sumo and from Shetty’s Sumo into the dance bar, condescending for barely a moment to tread on dirt. She would complain to those left behind: what a bore life is now that PS insists she enjoy, that she put her feet up in front of the TV and let the bai do all the jhadu-pocha-cooking—what else was she paid for, and how could the wife of a Shetty be poking under beds with a broom?

  She would familiarize herself with this kitty party bijniss and, yes, send Apsara packing. (To secure good karma, she would book her a berth on an AC two-tier train and fill her fatty hands with mithai and some jewellery—‘one piece gold, five piece silver’.)

  Shetty could still sleep with whomever he wanted. He was, after all, still a young man, as healthy as a Punjabi farm boy, Leela said with pride. Leela knew the new girl Twinkle currently held him in thrall and she didn’t care. She had it from a good source that Twinkle was carrying a particularly dire gupt rog and she planned to mention it to Shetty. ‘It’s the kind you get up here,’ she’d say casually, pointing to her mouth, ‘and,’ wincing, ‘down there!’

  Leela’s campaign involved getting herself tested for peeli bimari and other STDs, including HIV. Good health, she believed, was like pure gold—an obvious status symbol. Impure blood, Leela had seen with her own eyes, manifested itself in festering sores in visible places and in violent rashes that colonized the body like an army of ants. Some barwalis, she said, had reached such a crisis point, they had to slap dead people’s hair across their bald heads.

  Leela didn’t believe she had peeli bimari, but HIV . . . This is how it is, she explained to me. When Manohar pimped her out, it was pehle ki baat, arre who knew of HIV? Then she was raped, remember, when she first arrived in Bombay? Do you think even one of those cockroaches wore a chocolate? From there she went to Night Lovers and back then too few customers had culture. The things she heard! ‘I’m allergic to latex!’ ‘I deserve full pleasure!’ ‘Am I paying or not?’ Of course, to be franks, in the minds of some girls there was no question of a chocolate, because they were on the pill and needn’t worry about growing a baby.