Saroj Khan was one of the most prominent and influetial Indian dance choreographers in Hindi cinema. She gave many popular dance numbers to bollywood like yeh ishq haaye, dola re dola re, ek do teen. She was admitted to Guru Nanak Hospital in Mumbai on June 17 after she complained of having breathing issues and passed away on friday because of heart failure at 1.52 am on july 3.
Born in Mumbai’s Mahim area on November 22, 1948. She joined the movies as a child actor and soon became a background dancer. One of her first appearances as a dancer was in Aagosh (1953), in which she was Radha to Baby Naaz’s Krishna and danced to several classic songs, including Aaiye Meherbaan in Shakti Samanta’s Howrah Bridge (1958).
During this period, she became a regular dancer and dance assistant for B Sohanlal, whom she later married. After working with him for nearly a decade, She became an independent choreographer in 1974 with Geetaa Mera Naam (1947), had most successful collaborations were with actors Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit in the 1990s in songs like “Hawa Hawai”, “Ek Do Teen”, “Hum Ko Aaj Kal Hai Intezaar”, “Dhak Dhak Karne Laga”, “Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai”, and “Tamma Tamma”, she choreographed nearly 2000 songs In her career spanning forty years.
Her last work was the song “Tabaah Ho Gaye” from Kalank (2019) which was filmed on Madhuri Dixit.
Saroj Khan’s work got her eight Filmfare Awards, the biggest number anybody has won for movement up until this point, and three National Film Awards for Dola Re Dola (Devdas, 2002), the tunes of the 2006 Tamil film Sringaram, and Yeh Ishq Haaye (Jab We Met, 2008).
The ace choreographer was suffering from diabetes and other problem. While it was said that she has been recovering and might get discharged soon, she died on July 3rd.