Mumbai: Nirmala Nagpal, popularly known as Saroj Khan (born 22 November 1948) is one of the most prominent Indian dance choreographers in Hindi cinema.
Saroj Khan has choreographed over 2000 songs in her forty-year career in the Indian film industry.
She has made every big actor-actress starting from Madhuri Dixit to Alia Bhatt dance to her rhythm. But the changing times drove Saroj away from the film industry.
But despite her struggles, she persisted with her work and landed herself a great gig but was eventually shooed off the industry due to an incident involving the actress Katrina Kaif.
Katrina had a dance number in the film Thugs of Hindostan which was supposedly meant to be choreographed by Saroj. However, it later went to Prabhudeva.
“Yes, I was approached to choreograph ‘Suraiya’, but then Katrina said that if it is Masterji then I have to prepare a lot for it. And the makers didn’t have that much time, so Prabhu Deva came on board,” said Saroj.
Recently, there was news that Saroj has decided to retire due to her ill health. But speaking to the media, she said, “I want to work and this news is completely false.” She further added that “I want to do a better job and go to the film sets.”
Thugs of Hindostan flopped badly at the box office. The film featured Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan and Katrina in the lead roles.
At a conference, Aamir Khan took full responsibility for the film’s failure. The 53-year-old actor said, “I take the full responsibility of Thugs not working with the audience. You can be sure that we tried our level best but somewhere we went wrong. There are a few people who liked the film. I would like to thank them. We realise that most of the people did not like the film. I want to apologise to fans that I couldn’t entertain them the way they wanted, though we did try our best.”
Thugs Of Hindostan revolves around the ‘thugs’ led by the fierce Khudabaksh (Amitabh Bachchan), who poses a threat to the John Clive-led East India Company in 1795 Hindostan. The British recruit Firangi Mallah (Aamir Khan) to infiltrate the band of rebels and get them the leader of the thugs.
