Strugglers Survive

“We lost our daughter,our only child,in the early years of our marriage and my undivided attention went into caring for my parents-in-law. After their death,I took up dancing,a passion I had nursed since childhood,” says Shah Bano Sayani,housewife,who in tandem with her husband Abu Rasul Sayani,wowed the panel in the auditions. The couple,in Lucknow on Wednesday,spoke about their 35-year-old journey of togetherness.

“She has been such a good wife and served my family so well that when she expressed her desire to pursue dance,I raised no objection. On the contrary,I became her dance partner,” says AR Sayani,who had some experience of Fox Trot,Cha Cha and Waltz from his bachelor days.

“It was after 25 years of our marriage that she expressed her desire to dance and I gave her all-out support to the extent of becoming her partner in dance and choreography.” The two-some have performed on several occasions at many events in the city,though they don’t boast of a wide social circle. Ask them about who their friends are and they smile lovingly and point at each other. For Rajeev Surti,who will be a mentor and judge on the show this time,it was a make-or-break decision,when he asked his father to give him just six months to test if he could carve a niche for himself in dance or not. “I was not much of a success handling my father’s chemical business. In the six-month trial period I bought from him,I was lucky to get some shows in which I was an extra dancer and in Nach Baliye,I was offered Don by Farhan Akhtar. I choreographed the Ganpati song and Aaj ki raat in the film,after which there was no looking back,” says the Zoology post-graduate having arranged songs in Main Aur Mrs. Khanna. Namaste London and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na,his choreography skills will be seen in the Karan Johar-produced Kareena-Imran-starrer Stand By Me,a film produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali called Mr Pinto and a Shreyas Talpade-starrer Chemistry.

Choreography is a different ballgame today. It is not plain song and dance…you often have to make the story of a film progress with the song playing in the background,” says Surti.