On the whole, I like this book a lot.

The manner of writing about the history (of sorts) of tawaifs through the stories and history of three/four generations of tawaifs, is very good.

Saba Dewan really did get intimate with them, allowing them to open up to her, and allowing us to peek behind the veil of misinformation that surrounds tawaifs today.

The closest equivalent to a tawaif is a geisha. However, the geisha is not as stigmatised as the tawaif is today.

Saba shines when she puts the stories into the context of the changes to Indian society over the last two hundred years.

It's hard to figure out if she has added her own creative license to some of the stories, and the stories do seem to have been embellished somewhat, by memory.

What I don't like, is that she keeps referring to the modern-day tawaif by the word 'you', and wiring 'you did this' and 'you did that'. It almost seems accusatory and does detract from what is otherwise a really fine book. ( )