EXCERPT
An exclusive excerpt in Lounge (Mint / Wall Street Journal India) from the author’s new book about the hard lives that fuelled dance bars before they were closed
"Shetty had booked them into a resort called River View (‘A Treat of a Retreat’). It had a swimming pool and a waterfall and offered a buffet of delicacies like pulao and mutton curry, golgappas and fountains of fresh, flavoured lassi.
Leela would have been happy to be a tourist, her camera slung around her neck. She had no need, she said, to dance to the loud Bollywood music a DJ in a bandana and shades was spinning, to stand under the waterfall in her new swimsuit and black lace leggings, to mirror the couples entwined in the pool—their love, their lust, a tangible thing it was only natural to want for oneself.
She could be haappy, in a quiet, regular way, just being with Shetty.
‘If he’d only sat beside me . . .’ Leela sighed. ‘But he was happy with his blue films and beer.’..."
Note: Images in this excerpt were inspired by Beautiful Thing, and are not of people or places featured in the book