If ever in future, Bollywood’s moves would have to be documented in black and white, it would be fairly easy, to begin with, the contributions made by no one but Saroj Khan, or better to say, the Bollywood’s favourite ‘Masterji’. The iconic choreographer, who entered a field having the erstwhile domination of a particular gender, undoubtedly made it her own. So much so that she today sounds much like a synonymous entity of choreography and art than anything else.
With Khan’s career accumulating over decades, she has given uncountable spectacular performances that even after years seem to be fresh in the memories of not only her admirers but millions of people spread globally. Having worked in several films, producing over two thousand dance numbers, Khan had surely built her very own niche, difficult to be touched and altered by the ones to come.
Saroj Khan was born on November 22nd, 1948 as Nirmala Nagpal to Kishanchand Sadhu Singh and Noni Sadhu Singh, into an extravagant Pakistani family who later happened to have migrated to India following the partition. As per her words, she began her career at the unbelievable age of three, when she worked as a child actor for the film ‘Nazrana’. Later, she also appeared as a background dancer in various songs and thereby began her journey in the field that made her who she truly was.
She started as a trainee under the dance director B. Sohanlal, whom she later decided to marry. Khan tied her marital knot with B. Sohanlal, who himself was forty-one years of age and was a father of four children. Khan married at the age of thirteen and conceived her first child by the time she had turned fourteen. She gave birth to Hameed Khan. However, her marital life did not see many peaceful mornings and after the birth of her second child, her husband separated from her and moved to Chennai. Saroj tied the knot with businessman Sardar Roshan Khan and had a daughter, Sukanya Khan.
Her fledged independent choreography debut was made with the film ‘Geeta Mera Naam’ but the number that acted as her claim to fame was indeed her collaboration with no one but Sridevi in the song called ‘Hawa Hawai’ from the film Mr India. This was the time since when she didn’t have to look back at all, her path laid set, and thus she went on to grab all the stars in the Bollywood’s sky and scribbled her name on all of them.
‘Tezaab’, ‘Thanedaar’, ‘Beta’, ‘Gupt’, ‘Chandni’, ‘Nagina’ are just a small fraction of the films where Khan sprinkled her magic and compelled even those feet to twist and roll who never in their lives had tasted the fruit of tunes. There would absolutely be no such Indian who would be ignorant of the song ‘Ek Do Teen’, among many others, which should be credited accordingly for making innumerable special moments much more special when played and tuned to.
Khan received her first national award for her choreography in the song ‘Dola re Dola’ from the film Devdas. She went on to say openly that her dearest students have been Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai and even the actresses have something similar to say. On the work front, Saroj Khan’s last movie was ‘Kalank’ where she choreographed her favourite actress, Madhuri Dixit for the song ‘Tabah Ho Gaye.’
Khan took her last breath and left to her heavenly abode on July 3rd, 2020 following a sudden cardiac arrest. She was not merely a choreographer for her colleagues and companions. She was not merely an instructor for her students cum actors, but with every person she interacted with, she would leave her indelible imprint upon them. When she left this world, millions were affected, but it was the dance wing of Bollywood at large that was affected the most. The biggest of film directors rightly often stated that one doesn’t work with Masterji, one can only learn from her.
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