The Dancing Girls of Lahore: Selling Love and Saving Dreams in Pakistan's Pleasure District

By Louise Brown

An unforgettable and compassionate look at the lives of the residents of Lahore’s pleasure district

The Dancing Girls of Lahore inhabit the Diamond District in the shadow of a great mosque. The 21st century goes on outside the walls, this ancient quarter, but scarcely registers within. Though their trade can be described with accuracy as prostitution, the dancing girls have an illustrious history: beloved by sultans, their sophisticated art encompassed the best of Mughal culture. The modern day Bollywood aesthetic, with its love of gaudy spectacle, music, and dance, is their distant legacy. But the life of the pampered courtesan is not the one now being lived by Maha and her three girls. What they do is forbidden by Islam, though tolerated; but they are, unclean, and Maha’s daughters, like her, are born into the business and will not leave it.

Sociologist Louise Brown spent four years in the most intimate study of the family life of one Lahori courtesan. Beautifully understated, it turns a novelist’s eye on a true story that beggars the imagination. Maha, at fourteen a classically trained dancer of exquisite grace, had her virginity sold to the Sultan of Dubai; when her own daughter Nena comes of age and Maha cannot bring in the money she once did, she faces a terrible decision as the agents of the Sultan come calling once more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9780061870712

Reviews for The Dancing Girls of Lahore

[Fozia Saba · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this book and I felt it in my heart.The way the author stayed with the family n experienced things was something unique to me.The dark alley in which they are living how they are forced to live with no way out is a painful feeling for da reader too ...must read

[sara_cat-107388 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I do not think I’ve read a book - fiction nor nonfiction - that took place in Pakistan before. And, getting a glimpse into the lives of people who are probably not often talked about was an opportunity I’m very glad I got by having this book introduced to me. There are parts of the book that are written very well and do much to convey a sense of what life is like for those in Heera Mandi.However, some of Brown’s choices made me consider not finish reading the book. One of the main ones being the way she describes and talks about certain people. While it makes a lot of sense when she comments how the people and society would perceive the appearance of someone, when she continues to make it a focal point about a person being ‘fat’ or ‘ugly’ it began to feel a bit unsettling because the majority of the time these points had no bearing on anything else that happened and the text would have felt more like a glimpse into the lives of those she talked about, but instead became more and more like an opinion piece filled with biases.Another aspect of the book I think was not executed well was her use of Urdu and Punjabi words. Most of the time, her use helped ground the story in its setting and were things that did not translate well into English. But, she also uses Urdu or Punjabi words for things like ‘lane’ and ‘intersection.’ And I just do not see what that adds to the text because if there is a nuance in those words which do not exist in the English, there is no indication in the text itself nor in the glossary at the end of the book.The final thing that makes this book a bit hard to get into is the large number of people she writes about. While it is good to be introduced to a wide range of people who live in the area she writes about, the structure of the book is such that it becomes rather challenging to remember who certain people are because they are brought up only occasionally and each mention is rather far removed from others. Though, on the whole, the chronological structure does work well because the majority of the focus is on one family.If this is a topic you are interested, it is a book worth reading, but if it’s not something that you are interested in, I wouldn’t recommend trying to get through it.Content Warnings: physical and emotional abuse, especially of people under 18 years old, animal abuse, and mentions of rape and people - in particular girls under 18 - being forced to have sexual contact with significantly older men, drug abuse, etc.

[praj05_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A beautifully scripted heart wrenching saga on the turbulent life of Maha( a veteran in sex trade) in the illustrious red light area of Heera Mandi /Diamond Market in Lahore, Pakistan.

Heera Mandi once famous for its artistic aura of courtesans known purely for their dancing and singing skills has now been reduced to a commercial sex factory. A similar fate experienced by the courtesans of Lucknow (India) and the Geishas of Japan.

Brown’s protagonist Maha who is at the dusk of her career (prostitution was looked as a profession), fights the dilemmas of her burdensome life encompassing struggles from being the sole breadwinner to being a mother to five children. Her family is yet to find the respect privileged to the so called civil world. In her prime, Maha was sold to a wealthy Arab in Dubai at the age of 12. A few years later she donned the role of a mistress to a wealthy Pakistani man. As years passed by, she was disowned by her wealthy benefactor compelling Maha to live on the charity of an opium addicted businessman. Moreover, her daughter’s incidental attraction to her world worsens her dilemmas.

Maha’s story does not have a happy ending. It is not a fairytale but a reality that overwhelms many lives of young innocent victims of sex-trade. Brown’s characterization of Maha is an eye opener which exposes the dark underbelly of a civilized society. Maha is one the countless blameless outcasts of a situation created by lecherous sexual elements.

[purplehena · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I picked this up from the library mainly because I was curious to learn about a subject that I - an American-born & raised female of Pakistani origin - knew nothing about, since my relatives in Lahore are the well-off, Westernized sort who would never discuss such things with me. Despite having visited Lahore, including a visit during one of the months when the author was there, the Lahore described here is completely foreign to me. It is also both fascinating and compelling: like the author, I felt for these women and wished there were a way for them to break out of the perpetual cycle of prostitution. Definitely an eye-opener, and recommended.

[essa_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rather than being simply a collection of statistics and essays about prostitution or women's disempowerment, this book takes the reader right into the heart of one family's experience. Louise Brown lives for several years in Heera Mandi, particularly with one woman, "Maha," and her family. Brown eats their food, attends their parties, participates in their religious festivals, and sees the children grow older---and, sadly, sees the generationl cycle of prostitution carrying itself on in the maturing children. There are also fascinating sojourns with other people in Heera Mandi, including other prostitutes, pimps, an artist, and a family of Christian street-sweepers.The book does an excellent job of describing and evoking the sights, sounds and smells of Heera Mandi and elsewhere, and of bringing the people and places to vivid life. As well, Brown admirably portrays the people therein not as faceless caricatures or pitiable Third-World statistics, but as living humans with dignity and worth, humans who sometimes show great resilience in adapting to or resisting the often bleak circumstances into which they are born.It is a book that is as moving as it is informative.