Dancing to tunes or notes…

Do they dance? What do they wear? Who are these girls? Why do they take up such a job? Right from the time I was a teenager, I have always been curious to find out about the very popular Dance bars of Bombay. There were a couple of these bars in nandi galli, Bandra which I would often pass on my way to the station. I remember one of the names, Asha bar and restaurant. I was very curious to know what happens in these bars, my father who was a very open minded person, agreed to put an end to my curiosity about the dance bars by answering all my queries related to them, little had he known that he has just sowed the seed to by curiosity. He said he had visited one of them, on the insistence of one of his clients for a meeting, he totally hated it. It had loud music, women fully dressed and dancing to glaring loud music and men throwing money at them. He told me that it was the first and last time he ever visited one and would never go their again. When I asked him what he thought about these women dancing in the bars? Was a good thing or a bad? I loved his answer must share it with you

“beta, these girls who work in the bar, do not like to work here, they are doing these out of a need to feed their families. We live in a society, where every man has a physiological and psychological need for attention, sex etc, thus when he comes to a dance bar his ego is satisfied because he can throw money and get attention from any women present there. Its because of these girls, that girls like you are safe to go roam around the city even late at time without the fear of getting molested or raped, like in cities of the north. You should actually be grateful to them”

Over the period of years my inquisitiveness for the dance bars increased and I tidbits of information about them from friends, journalists, books

No entry charge to get into a bar
Women are fully dressed usually in the most gaudy clothes and they dance to latest Bollywood hits
There are various levels in the dance a bar catering to different strata’s, the Nightlovers at Andheri is supposed to be very sleek and fancy and probably the most expensive of the lot. Deepa bar at Parle is medium. However there used to be tons of these bars across Dahisar and Borivali. The fancier one in the suburbs used to be Jharna
At these bars you cannot touch the women, there are bouncers present
I am told the men through money at the girl or buy a 100 or ten rupees garland and give it to the girl
The guys who visit these bars are usually businessmen, local gangsters, drug peddlers, film producers etc. Some visitors often blow up to lakhs or even cores within one night. I guess it’s a good vent for their black money
The water and beer in dance bars is very expensive. For e.g. a bottle of water is Rs 100.
The bars have been operating for many years under the cultural dance performances license
Most of the girls who work in these bars work in shifts. 9pm to 1pm and 1pm to 5pm. So if you ever take the last train at 1:15 from church gate and sit in the ladies general compartment you will find loads of these girls entering at Grant road station and Dadar. Chatting about the latest makeup, talking about the irritating client at the bar, laughing and joking around these girls company is sure to make your ride home enjoyable
Dance bars are a topic of great interest. Reams and reams of newsprint has been dedicated to dance bars whether its on websites, books, newspapers or television. Channels. Infact when the state government lifted the ban on dance bars it was the front page news of every single newspaper in Mumbai.


Dance bars is something synonym with Mumbai. I wonder why such places haven’t opened in Delhi or Gujarat. I am told Bangalore has a few dance bars. Dubai has some very fancy ones; infact after the ban in Mumbai, many of them went to work in the dance bars in Dubai
and Bangalore

However, finally when I convinced a set of my friends to take me to dance bar or cham cham bar as it is called, it got prolonged, I went out of the country for a couple of months and when I was back they had banned the dance bars. Now there is hope after the government has lifted the ban