1990 multi-starrer film Sheshnaag, directed by Filmmaker KR Reddy, was billed as a fantasy film. The team faced a lot of problems in the making of its dance track: A cinema icon, a celebrated choreographer and rising tension between both of them. The film also starred Jeetendra, Madhavi and Rishi Kapoor.
Late choreographer Saroj Khan was given the responsibility of designing a dance sequence for Actor Rekha in the film. Rekha, according to Khan, was not giving them dates despite the fact that the unit was racing against the time to film the dance number.
Saroj Khan had said in an interview, “The producer had given us very little time, we had three days of rehearsals. My group and I worked round the clock to compose (its choreography) and then requested the producer to send Rekha ji as it was a difficult dance. But she didn’t come. I think either she was not well or had some shoots, as far as I know, she had shoots.”
Rekha
Rekha was present on the sets when the shoot day arrived. But when the star requested to cancel the shoot as she was under the weather, Khan was shocked for a moment. Saroj Khan decided to confront her to tell her what was going on.
“The day she came, she was just wearing makeup, not her costume. She was sitting in her car, and I went to meet her.” “She asked to cancel the shoot citing her ill health. I told her, ‘Rekha ji, I think you are allergic to me. I call you for rehearsals, you don’t come. You come for shoot but say that you are not well. You can talk to the producer and change the dance masters, tell them that you don’t want to work with me. Because kuch toh gadbad hai.’”
After Saroj Khan said those things to her, she recalled that Rekha was in tears. “Suddenly she turned her face and when she looked back, there were tears in her eyes. I told her that I didn’t say anything wrong to her but felt that she should shoot today. She said, ‘I will definitely shoot today’ and went to get ready.”
Khan told about how after a few minutes, Rekha’s secretary asked her if she had said anything to Rekha “because she was crying away.” Saroj met Rekha again, and she told her, ‘I respect you a lot but you told me that I don’t love your work.’ “To which I corrected her and said, I just felt like that because everyone has got their own favourites. Govinda calls Chinni Prakash because he likes him, his style suits him. If Dimple Kapadia calls Chinni Prakash, I should not mind it, just because she is my student does not mean she has to call me.”
Khan said that Rekha heard everything she said and then told her that wasn’t the case but “I will do this song and show you how I can dance.” “In that anger and spirit, the dance came out beautifully. She danced very well and did all all the movements, without changing anything. May be it was the tension between us, but she did the best,” Saroj added.
Eventually, the tension between the choreographer and actor was resolved and Rekha and later, Saroj Khan were on good terms. In 2019, at an awards show, when Rekha saw Khan sitting with her family, she kneeled in front of the choreographer. Later on, the actor also met all her family members as well.
Khan was a Bollywood choreographer whose film career spanned more than 60 years. She joined the industry in the early 1950s as a 3-year-old child actress, and at the age of 12 she became an assistant choreographer. She choreographed nearly 2,000 songs, including many of the Bollywood classics like “Ek Do Teen” and “Dhak Dhak Karne Laga”.
Saroj Khan was one of the most celebrated and one of the best choreographers of the Bollywood industry. She died in 2020 at the age of 71. She was known best for iconic dance numbers featuring actors like Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
