DANCE of LIFE

DEVESH SHARMA CHRONICLES THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHOREOGRAPHER SAROJ KHAN, WHO PASSED AWAY RECENTLY

- DEVESH SHARMA

Saroj Khan’s story is akin to something spun by Salim-Javed in the ’70s. Partition played a hand in shaping many a destiny. Hers too became a riches-to rags-to-riches story. Her father, Kishanchand Sadhu Singh, was said to be an established businessman in Karachi, Pakistan. He and his wife Noni seemingly lost everything while crossing over to India. Saroj was born as Nirmala Nagpal on November 22, 1948. Soon, the family grew and she had to share a room in a chawl with five more siblings. In one of her interviews, she stated that they were so poor during her childhood that sometimes they had to subsist on one meal a day. Her mother used to put water to boil and tell the children to sleep saying she’d wake them up after the food was cooked. A neighbor, who used to sell onion pakoras, used to give them the leftover stuff in the evenings. Young Nirmala was fond of looking at the shadows and dancing along with them. Concerned, her mother took her to the doctor, thinking something was wrong with her. The doctor told her mother that she was an imaginative child who loved dancing and advised her mother to teach her dancing.