Hansal Mehta and Bhushan Kumar are making a biopic on Saroj Khan.
Saroj Khan was born on November 22, 1948, in Bombay State in a Hindu family. Her name was Nirmala Nagpal.
Ace choreographer Saroj Khan’s untimely death in 2020 left the entire film fraternity in shock. Within a career spanning over 40 years, she contributed to the world of Indian cinema in a way that can never be paid back. Given her stature and her immense contribution to Bollywood, director Hansal Mehta and producer Bhushan Kumar are collaborating to make a biopic on her and speculations are rife that Madhuri Dixit will be essaying her character.
Do you know that Saroj Khan was born a Hindu and later converted to Islam for the sake of love and her kids? She was born on November 22, 1948, in Bombay State in a Hindu family. Her name was Nirmala Nagpal. It was her parents who changed her name from Nirmala to Saroj before she started working in the film industry because they didn’t want her orthodox family to know that their daughter worked for films.
At the age of 13, Saroj Khan married dance guru, B Sohanlal who was 43 at that time. The choreographer gave birth to their first child at the age of 14. After Saroj welcomed her first child, she came to know that Sohanlal was already married with four kids.
In an interview with a media portal, Saroj Khan talked about her separation from Sohanlal saying, “In 1965, I gave birth to my second child, a daughter who died within eight months of birth. Around that time, Sohanlal and I parted ways as he refused to give my children his name. Towards the end of 1969, he approached me again to be his assistant adding that when he suffered a heart attack, I went to see him and there was that one night when I was with him. I conceived my daughter, Kuku. After that, he completely disappeared from my life and settled in Madras.”
Later, she settled down with a businessman, Sardar Roshan Khan, and married him. She also converted to Islam to marry him. Speaking about her second marriage, the choreographer said, “I met a Pathan, a businessman named Sardar Roshan Khan. He was married with kids but he fell deeply in love with me. He was willing to accept my children and give them his name unlike Sohanlal, so I married him in 1975. He turned out to be a Godsend, and I haven’t regretted my decision to date.”
Saroj Khan’s contribution to Bollywood includes choreography for over 2,000 songs most of which were chart-toppers like Hawa Hawai, Ek Do Teen and Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai, among others.
