Rajender Masterji is a rotund man wearing a body-hugging, sequinned Lycra kurta and cat-eye contact lenses.
With DJs performing even at mehendi functions, Lady Gaga numbers are replacing squeaky shehnais at weddings
He began his career in Bombay giving dance lessons to aspiring starlets,
but today his main line of business is choreographing Bollywood dance
sequences at weddings for the family and friends of the to-be-wedded. In
full Bollywood style, these dance sequences usually tell a story and
are interrupted with mini-plays which tell of how the girl and the boy
met and how they fell in love (even if the match is arranged).
“Masterji” as he is popularly known, is India’s celebrity dance
choreographer, and has choreographed for the reality TV show Shaadi Teen
Crore Ki. He refuses to disclose his rates to me, but my research says
that his fees start at a lofty R10 lakh per sangeet. He has laid claim
to several millionaire weddings such as Lakshmi Mittal, Ponty Chadha and
the Reddys of Hyderabad.
According to Masterji, the dance sequence trend at weddings first started with movies such as Dil To
With DJs performing even at mehendi functions, Lady Gaga numbers are replacing squeaky shehnais at weddings
He began his career in Bombay giving dance lessons to aspiring starlets,
but today his main line of business is choreographing Bollywood dance
sequences at weddings for the family and friends of the to-be-wedded. In
full Bollywood style, these dance sequences usually tell a story and
are interrupted with mini-plays which tell of how the girl and the boy
met and how they fell in love (even if the match is arranged).
“Masterji” as he is popularly known, is India’s celebrity dance
choreographer, and has choreographed for the reality TV show Shaadi Teen
Crore Ki. He refuses to disclose his rates to me, but my research says
that his fees start at a lofty R10 lakh per sangeet. He has laid claim
to several millionaire weddings such as Lakshmi Mittal, Ponty Chadha and
the Reddys of Hyderabad.
According to Masterji, the dance sequence trend at weddings first started with movies such as Dil To
Pagal Hai and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, but it is only in the last five
or seven years that the craze for Bollywood dances at weddings has
really set in.
The popularity of these dance sequences has spawned an entire industry of dance teachers or ‘choreographers’ and several dance studios that cater only to weddings have mushroomed in metro cities.
Much to my chagrin, at my sister’s recent Delhi wedding, I found myself in the sticky spot of organising the wedding dances. The cheapest choreographer that I could find came with a price tag of R1,000 for an hour. This seemed to me belligerently high for teaching a few hip swings and gyrations. Dinesh, our personal choreographer, turned out to be a greasy, greedy man who eventually began charging us overtime for dance practice.
Once upon a time, not very long ago, the sangeet used to be an
occasion when the ladies of the family, usually the girl’s side, came
together to sing fortune-bearing folk songs. For better or for worse,
for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health – the present-day
sangeet has morphed into a full-blown, bombastic, hifalutin’ Bollywood
performance.
The popularity of these dance sequences has spawned an entire industry of dance teachers or ‘choreographers’ and several dance studios that cater only to weddings have mushroomed in metro cities.
Much to my chagrin, at my sister’s recent Delhi wedding, I found myself in the sticky spot of organising the wedding dances. The cheapest choreographer that I could find came with a price tag of R1,000 for an hour. This seemed to me belligerently high for teaching a few hip swings and gyrations. Dinesh, our personal choreographer, turned out to be a greasy, greedy man who eventually began charging us overtime for dance practice.
Once upon a time, not very long ago, the sangeet used to be an
occasion when the ladies of the family, usually the girl’s side, came
together to sing fortune-bearing folk songs. For better or for worse,
for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health – the present-day
sangeet has morphed into a full-blown, bombastic, hifalutin’ Bollywood
performance.
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