PIROJ WADIA reviews a documentary on Saroj Khan, the choreographer par excellence.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali is passionately talking about the picturisation of his signature piece ‘Dola Re’ from ‘Devdas’. Sweeping his arms around in a semi-circle he talks about camera placements, shot taking, etc. interspersing it with phrases like “She said, No, you move the camera this way and the dancers will come from this direction. What a visual sense!
Everything was so fluid….” he is incredulous. The ‘she’ in question, is none other than Saroj Khan, choreographer par excellence.
This is when Nidhi Tulli’s documentary ‘The Saroj Khan Story’ is heading to its conclusion. It leaves the viewer wanting to know more about this enigmatic woman, who has enthralled and continues to enthrall audiences with extravagant to minimalist dance picturisations. As the credits flash, the audience is unanimous in its applause.
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The 57-minute documentary takes you through the life of Bollywood’s most celebrated choreographer, who is revered as guruji or masterji by divas such as Madhuri Dixit.
Saroj Khan is normally seen as a woman who epitomises energy and joy along with being a hard taskmaster; but is as much philosophical and downhearted in telling segments interspersed during the film. Sparkling and well paced, despite the glamour, Tulli has remained sensitive to Saroj Khan’s upheavals, emotions and grief.
The opening shot shows Saroj Khan preoccupied with her cell phone. Wondering what would happen to her family when she isn’t there. “My children don’t understand me.” Her daughter, Kuku fell ill and died during the making of the film.
Indicated through calls she makes for medicines, for the obit, to a friend, etc. Life then must have blurred past her.
A working, single mother she yearns for her children when she gets home. Saroj Khan tells her story, sometimes with crinkled expressions of joy or tear-filled reminisces, intermingled with shots of dances or her at work.
Her tryst with dance started as a child artiste when she danced as a young Shama in Sharda. “In ‘Agosh’, I and Baby Naaz danced as Radha and Krishna. We were sent to Maganlal Dresswalla for our costumes, when an elderly couple saw us coming down the stairs, they fell to their knees,” she laughed.
The young Saroj also shared frame space with Madhubala in Howrah Bridge dressed as a boy. Full of beans, she was popular with her co-artistes and juggled school and homework with shooting.
As a child, she was fascinated with shadow play with her hands. Her mother thought her mad. A neighbour detected young Saroj’s flair for dancing, and persuaded the mother to let her take on work in films. A welcome break for the family, who were living in a chawl, and Saroj and her siblings staple fare was bread and bhajiyas which came courtesy a neighbouring snack stall.
One Diwali she had just completed a group dance with Shashi Kapoor, she approached the actor for a loan saying, “We have nothing at home for Diwali and this payment will come only after a week. Shashi Kapoor gave me Rs.200 saying, “This is all I have on me.” She laughs, “I still haven’t returned it to Shashiji.”
Sheela, a co-dancer recalls that Saroj Khan would memorise everyone’s moves, even those of the lead actors’. Once she was going through Helen’s paces, when Sohanlal, the dance master saw her and pulled her up. Recognising her talent, Sohanlal made her his assistant. She was only 13.
A dancer by default, Saroj Khan learnt dancing at the feet of her master, Sohanlal, a classical dancer and a hard taskmaster. She attributes her success to Sohanlal. “He would make me stand in one position for three hours.”
The guru-shisya bond notwithstanding, Saroj Khan avers, “I was so much in love with my Guruji. If I saw another dancer with him I would burn with jealousy.” She married him at a very young. As she speaks, she turns tearful. “He gave me lots, I gave him nothing.”
Right from her assistant days, “When I danced on the sets for the heroine to watch, all the spot boys, light men would watch and clap, as soon as I finished,” she recalls. Sanjay Leela Bhansali likens her to 100 watts. “She’s like a school, an institution of how to shoot a dance. She’s dynamic…”
He continues: “She was in excruciating pain when we were shooting for
‘Devdas’. She lay down on the floor at Filmistan and shot.” When ‘Devdas’ was released Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Aishwarya Rai went to see her in the ICU. Through the haze of medication she asked: “Dola Re pe ceete baji, paise phenke?”
When N Chandra came to ask her for something wild for ‘Tezaab’, she gave him just that – the riotous ‘Ek Do Teen’. That was the year Filmfare added Best Choreography to their roster for awards and the first recipient simply had to be Saroj Khan. After which there was no stopping .
