Dancing soles

“Till that workshop in Bangalore,I was doing odd jobs. I had been working as a watchman,was also driving for someone. When I came back to Mumbai,I began looking out for dance classes and it started from there,” Shah says.

Shah has been making these dance shoes from a Dharavi workshop for the past three years. He says many of his shoes have made their way to countries such as New Zealand,the US,Dubai and Germany. Actors like Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra have been using his dance shoes in their movies like Holiday,Blue,Tees Mar Khan,Kites,7 Khoon Maaf and Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji.

With no formal education except for seven years at a madarsa in Bihar,Shah had to rely on skills he picked up as a child,working in leather workshops manufacturing wallets and bags. He had come to Mumbai at the age of 10 and began working at leather workshops. “I come from Doghra village in Darbanga district in Bihar. My father is a farmer and we were eight children in all; I am the oldest. Since we all could not afford to study,I came to Mumbai very early in life to make money. This is the city of money — a person who understands himself will be successful here,” he says.

While learning to dance,he began observing the dance shoes and found that most dancers get their shoes from abroad. Shah began making shoes on his own. It was reverse engineering at first. He would rip apart dance shoes and try and figure out how to make them on his own. “I made scores of shoes that were not the right fit. It was trial and error. It wasn’t easy.”

He set up his own workshop in Dharavi three years ago. It helped that he himself was a dancer,he could design the shoes better. “Even if you wear my heeled dance shoes,you will be able to dance without discomfort at a stretch for around 12 hours. These dance shoes are so soft that they can be rolled like a chicken or a mutton roll,” he says. Shah had,in 2004,participated in a continous dance party in Goa,where he danced for over 55 hours at a stretch and it had won him accolades.