Some time this week, a tailor will visit Ellora Guest House, Borivali, not for a good night, but to measure its dancers for uniforms of the waitresses they will become. Well, most of them any way. ‘‘Main waitress ka kaam nahi karungi (I won’t work as a waitress),’’ Nikita (20) says defiantly. She is among the 30 women who danced for a living at Ellora till Saturday night when a police team—like many other police teams that fanned out across the city, and the state—raided it and shut it down. Like so many of the girls here, Nikita is not from Mumbai. She came here three years ago leaving behind a family in Kolkata. She worked at a public phone booth in Borivali for a year, but that didn’t make enough money for herself, let alone her dependant family in Kolkata. One day, she overheard some bar girls talking to their clients on the phone at her booth and they became friends—and then colleagues at Ellora. The night before, Ellora’s boss Pravin Agarwal had ordered the music stopped in the bar’s mirrored dance room. The zany lights stopped twinkling, the last song was over and a terrible silence settled over the 800-sq-ft room lined with cushioned sofas and foot-high tables. ‘‘Aaj bar ka aakhri din hai, lekin agli bar se yeh ladkiya aapko waitress ki taur pe milengi (Today is the bar’s last day, the next time you see them, these girls will be waitresses),” Agrawal says. Nikita, who had not even changed into her favorite midnight-blue lehenga that evening, had rushed out abruptly as the song ended. The 4’11’’ spitfire crumples into a sobbing heap near some empty cartons. ‘‘Mere ghar mein koi aur kaam nahi karta (No one else works in my family),” she says now. She speaks the fears of bar dancers everywhere in the city. All looking at possible joblessness and certain compromise. Still sobbing, she’s led away by another dancer Saloni (23), who she clings to. ‘‘Arre, itni bahadur bachchi, aise kaise ro rahi hai? Hum kuch karenge na (Such a brave girl, how can you cry like this? Don’t worry, we’ll do something),’’ Saloni says. Two days of worrying has begun to show on Nikita. She’s worn her everyday clothes to the bar, is running a fever and she’s made her lowest earning yet—Rs 120. ‘‘Doctor ne davai di aur rest lene ko kaha hai (The doctor’s given me medicine and asked me to rest),’’ says the girl-woman who’d been coming to work at 7 pm in the same autorickshaw every day for the last two years. Monday, August 15, 2005. The bar is shut. The girls left on Sunday night thinking about what a waitress’s uniform will mean. Nikita sits cradling the bag that holds her favorite midnight-electric-blue lehenga. THE END The last tear Sunita (22)—they all restrict their identities to a first name—danced at Ellora and supported an old mother and two younger brothers who study The last farewell Nikita clings to Saloni (23) who assures her they’ll work something out. The girls bid farewell to each other; some are not entirely prepared for a farewell like this The last thought While her colleagues make emergency calls, this dancer sits down to put it all together
