This story is from November 23, In Dubai, thriving Indian clubs with a dark side? All of them are young, dressed in provocative mini skirts or diaphanous lehngas and condemned to moving their hips to tuneless renderings of Hindi film songs for seven hours each night, seven days a week. After that, if you believe the goody-goody accounts provided by the girls and their employer, they are bussed demurely home to shared accommodation, where they sleep the sleep of the just.
It would hardly be surprising even though pimping and the sex trade has, till now, been linked with other nationalities, notably Chinese and Russian. Shetty and the girls insist they do nothing more titillating than dancing in skin-tight clothes. But insiders are sceptical. Another, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said he knew the girls sold their bodies or what would be their incentive to dance well?
This sum is beyond the means of most Indians in Dubai because they are overwhelmingly unskilled construction, agricultural or domestic workers, or engaged in skilled and semi-skilled work.
These lone men keep the Dhamaal chain throbbing, so much so that on the weekday night TOI visited, one club was packed with at least enthusiastic customers at 2am. Singer Miss Roshni from Kolkata, whose role appears roughly equivalent to that of Mother Superior at a convent, says the girls are looked after tenderly. There is general agreement β and some proof at least β of this.
Backstage, the girls are encouraged to snack on home fare such as fresh parathas, dahi, subzi, pickles and gallons of hot tea.
