Shoba De Unveils Sonia Faleiros Book Titled 'Beautiful Thing' At Crossword

Online, November 11, 2010 (Newswire.com) - When a non-fiction novel of such intensity and power is spoken of; one expects a slightly mature author. Sonia is surprisingly young.

Fiesty, unabashed Sonia Faleiro is just the kind of person who would've let her language flow en-encumbered and come up with the telling story of Mumbai's red light underbelly.

Her chance meeting with Leela, a beautiful and charismatic bar dancer in 2005 is now the subject of "a beautiful thing"; a very beautiful tale indeed! Leela introduced Sonia to the underworld of Mumbai's dance bars, a world which encircles around women, love, sex, violence, customers, gangsters, police, prostitutes and pimps.

And while we re speaking of being bold; who better than the very vocal and beautiful Shoba De to do the honours. Reading excerpts from the book, Shoba De said, "The best thing about the book is that it hits you in the head right from the first line of the very first chapter boldly titled 'Challenge me, any man, any time' "

On being asked about the difficulty faced during research considering the complexity of the subject Faleiro answered "It was very important for me to make myself completely available for Leela. A huge amount of involvement was required i.e. going for shopping with Leela and even attending weddings. In short I had to become a fly on the wall." Leading a life parallel to one from the marginalized community demands courage.

Both Shoba and Sonia read few pages from the book for the audience at Crossword and did complete justice to it as they brought the characters of the book alive by modulating their voice. Time to celebrate Indian writing in English again; with two shining ambassadors exulting the joy of creation on stage!

The book also speaks about the life of bar dancers post when an ambitious politician cashed it on a tide of false morality to completely wipe out Mumbai's dance bars. It will give the reader a rare glimpse about the unspoken world.