Once an integral part of Mumbai’s nightlife, dance bars disappeared from the cityscape following its ban, hitting livelihoods of women depending on them particularly harder.
Dancers numbering in hundreds and thousands were forced to look for alternatives such as being 'mujras' or waitresses in orchestra-bars. While some flew to the Gulf for job opportunities in the Emirates, others took to prostitution or dancing in political rallies and wedding parties.
To their horror, those moved to the Gulf did not find attractive opportunities and ran into troubles.
The issue of bar dancers does not lie in shutting the only source of livelihood for them, says Bharatiya Bar Girls Union, but in rehabilitating them and finding long-term livelihood alternatives.
Eighty per cent of the bar dancers hail from traditional dancing families of north and south India and were sucked into the stratospheric growth dance bars witnessed in the last three decades.
Indeed, mushrooming of dance bars across the city lured several singers, dancers and entertainers which gradually made it a lucrative industry.
A few dancing clubs existed during pre-independence era in Mumbai. Mac Donald's school of Dancing, started during the period, turned out to be the most famous pick-up joint for the mariners. Several pick up joints opened in Gunbow Street in the guise of dancing schools and cabaret bars flourished in the affluent neighbourhoods in the decades that followed Independence.
During the seventies, a few ladies service bars opened in Grant Road and Parel areas and spread across several neighbourhoods.
The present-day dance bars are mostly the 1980s phenomena that emerged to fill in the void left by the cabaret bars, long closed by then, and police raids on ladies service bars that shut them up for good.
It all began when restaurants and bars grew rapidly by acquiring licence to operate and wanted to have an edge over their competitors by playing orchestras and mimicry artistes. This coincided with the decline of Mumbai’s mujra dancers due to lack of patronage.
Most of the mujra dancers hailed from the city’s red light area existing adjacent to the mujra dancing centres. With hunger for entertainers in the bars growing, many of them found employment in the dance bars.