The dance-bar girls were once one of the best-known features of Bombay nightlife - until the present government of Maharashtra state closed the bars as part of a morality drive in 2005. It is believed to have put some 75,000 dancers out of work, and now the girls are intent on fighting back. They are to meet tomorrow to decide whether to form their own political party or stand as independent candidates in municipal elections. There was major controversy when the state government decided to close the bars. It accused them of "corrupting the youth" and being barely disguised brothels, and the bar girls of being prostitutes - accusations the dancers and bar owners deny. They say they were performers and there was no sex involved. The truth lay in between. Certainly to visit the dance bars you would not think they were brothels. The audience may have been made up entirely of men, but the dancers were fully dressed in long shimmering lengha skirts, and beyond the odd exposed midriff there was no flesh on view. The dancers were rarely prostitutes. Some were purely dancers, but their dubious reputation came from many who worked as a form of courtesan. They would encourage relationships with regular visitors and agree to meet them outside. The relationship was financial: they would milk the men for expensive gifts - a mobile telephone, a television, even a better flat. But they would rarely sleep with a man until they had had a relationship for several months. READ THIS:::: Bobby Darling is an Indian Page 3 celebrity and actor (Page 3 meaning the glamor world's page of Indian newspapers). His original name is Pankaj Sharma, and he claims to be deeply in love with Akhilesh Kandhari (a man). He himself as well as the contemporary Indian media call him as a gay man, who dresses more or less like a woman; however, his repeated claims that he feels himself to be a woman inside the body of a man would make him, by modern medical terminology, a heterosexual-transsexual woman (the modern definitions are based on the gender/sex that a transsexual person targets, not what he/she was born with or is at present). The Guinness Book of World records enlists him as "the first gay who has done the maximum number of films and serials in Bollywood in gay (sic) roles." ? Biography Pankaj Sharma was born in Delhi. He is the second of three children of an English professor and a bank manager. As a young boy, he played only with girls and wanted to be a woman. In the eighth grade, he started using his mother's lipsticks, saris and bras. In the 12th grade, he had his first serious relationship with a male classmate. His parents took him to a sexologist, a psychiatrist, and even a temple. His father used to beat him. One day he ran away with his boyfriend, because he was afraid of flunking the final exams. The couple travelled to the Far East and Europe, doing odd jobs. He returned when his father called him to say his mother was dying of kidney failure. After his mother's death, Pankaj tried to become a teacher by joining Khalsa college. His father disowned him through a legal notice published in newspaper. Pankaj then came to Mumbai from Delhi. He spent a fortnight at the station, sleeping on stairs. He was invited to live with four girls, who worked in a dance bar in Malad. The girls told him about a gay man who used to earn a lot as a dancer. Bobby Darling decided to become a dancer, and earned Rs. 170 for his first performance. He decided to become an actor after reading Bollywood actress Rekha's interview, in which she said: "If you're famous, people love you for being famous. They don't care about your personal life". He struggled for two years before he started getting small roles in films. He started getting known as "Bobby Darling" (Bobby was Pankaj's pet name). He also became a known name in Mumbai's party circuits.

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