It can be incredibly salty, incredibly spicy. Even somebody who has lived in Bombay and who speaks Hindi would not be comfortable speaking their twist on Hindi and English. Language is so telling of who we are, where we are from, what our experiences have been like, so it was crucial for me to capture the language of the bar dancers. How were you able to capture the distinctive voices of Leela and her friends? It was clear that she had a profound understanding of her place in the world. She flirted with everybody in the bar, from the bar owner to the steward-even with me. The first thing I noticed about Leela was that she took over the entire room. But trying to get information out of them is like getting water out of stone.” He called me over to his bar, and there were five girls waiting for me in this dingy, smoky little bar in South Bombay. At one point, there was a news report about bar dancers, and I asked a source of mine, a dance bar owner, whether he would introduce me to some bar dancers. But even in the course of my reportage, I never had the opportunity to visit one. I knew the dance bars existed-they’ve been around since the 1970s.
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