Beautiful Thing

'A small masterpiece - a sassy, sensitive and deeply moving account of one bar girl's journey spiralling down through the circles of hell that is Bombay's sex industry.' William Dalrymple, author of Nine Lives

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Sonia Faleiro was a reporter in search of a story when she met Leela, a beautiful and charismatic bar dancer with a story to tell.

Leela introduced Sonia to the underworld of Bombay's dance bars: a world of glamorous women, of fierce love, sex and violence, of customers and gangsters, of police, prostitutes and pimps.

When an ambitious politician cashed in on a tide of false morality, and had Bombay's dance bars wiped out, Leela's proud independence faced its greatest test. In a city where almost everyone is certain that someone, somewhere, is worse off than them, she fights to survive, and to win.

Beautiful Thing, one of the most original works of non-fiction from India in years, is a vivid and intimate portrait of one reporter's journey into the dark, pulsating and ultimately damaged soul of Bombay.