Among Mumbai's fascinating cast of characters, an eternally intriguing one is the dance bar girl. Regrettably, she has been reduced to a caricature who swings from pitiful victim (filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar's portrayal in Chandni Bar) to evil temptress (politician RR Patil's version). Both take a moralistic middle-class view, without allowing her to speak for herself. Which is why Sonia Faleiro's book, Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay's Dance Bars is such a relief. It tells the story of Leela and how she glided and gyrated through this diaphanous strobe-lit world that once thrived beneath the bustle of Mumbai. But we hear Leela's voice. No pity. No bias. No judgment. No solutions.   Narrative non-fiction is a wonderful kind of writing that combines solid reporting with beautiful story-telling. It engages the reader in the way the novel does, but without compromising on fact. It came to the fore with writers like Tom Wolfe and David Remnick in the west.