COVID-19 may deal the final blow to Mumbai's dance bars

Kammo, Julie, Sheela, Tanya...and many others. They were the dance bar girls of Mumbai - and these were not their real names. In lehenga-choli and sarees, they swayed and gyrated to Bollywood numbers and patron showered currency notes on them.

The cigarette smoke-filled room, the aroma of liquor, the burning of tandoor and dazzling multi-colour lights - might just become part of Mumbai's history.

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In 2005, the Maharashtra government banned dance bar but after a prolonged battle that went to the level of Supreme Court, these bars restarted after more than a decade but with severe restrictions.

Now the dance bars and orchestra bars are going through the worst phase and it could be the final nail in the coffin because of COVID-19 and the ongoing lockdown. In the last two months, thousands associated with dance bars - dancers, waiters, barmen, cooks security staff, bouncers, have been on hand-to-mouth survival. Many have left the city and whether they would return or not is an open-ended question.

"The condition is really bad, we really do not know what the future holds. We already have enough restrictions on dance bars, the time limit of 11.30 pm. In future we would have to follow physical distancing norms," said Bharat Singh Thakur, the President of Performance Bars' Association.

Thakur told DH that since mid-March, several dancers have left for their home states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam. Mumbai and its suburbs had 400 dance bars before the 2005 ban. Around 300 of them were converted into orchestra bars and ladies service bars after the ban. Only a few applied for dance bars but performances did happen.

"We are in a difficult situation now...whether people will with masks and follow social distancing norms. We appear to have hit a dead-end," a source associated with dance bars told DH.

In several Bollywood movies, Mumbai's dance bars have been showcased in item numbers.

Filmmaker Madhu Bhandarkar, who made the national award-winning film 'Chandni Bar' starring Tabu that dwelled on the lives of dance bar girls. Internationally-acclaimed writer Suketu Mehta too in his 'Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found', is a narrative non-fiction book, which deals on Mumbai, has made several references to dance bars.

Sonia Faleiro's 'Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars' is another interesting book.

A book 'Bar-Bala' penned by a former bar dancer, Vaishali Haldankar, too highlights the issue. Vaishali worked for about 16 years as a singer in the various liquor, orchestra and dance bars in Maharashtra and abroad.

A dance bar owner said that the lockdown has given a blow to the economy. "Who will come now? If we do a simple calculation, a 60-ml peg of 'common drink' will cost Rs 550 plus. Will people now have money to spend Rs 3,500 to 5,000 plus in one sitting? And that too when you will have to follow various norms including that of physical distancing. And leave by 11.30 pm? On average if a person walks in by 9.30 to 10 pm, we will be able to enjoy just five or six dance or songs," he said.