Sonali Bendre Recalls Saroj Khan Walking Out of Her Rehearsal: Choreographer Said, ‘Heroine Ko Toh Naachna Bhi Nahi Aata’ (EXCLUSIVE)

For audiences who grew up watching Sonali Bendre through the song-heavy era of Hindi cinema, it is difficult to imagine that there was a time when dance sequences terrified her. From “Humma Humma” to “Aankhon Mein Base Ho Tum,” Bendre became a defining screen presence of the late ’90s and early 2000s musical landscape. But behind that image, the actor says that songs were the most stressful part of filmmaking for her career.

“The nightmare situation in movies was the song. I can’t tell you what a nightmare that was. I’m not a trained dancer,” Bendre says. The actor explains that while she enjoyed songs that organically pushed the story forward, the choreography was what triggered intense anxiety. “Most of my songs are more like stories rather than part of the narrative. And I liked the songs as long as they were part of the narrative because that didn’t give me as much anxiety as, ‘You have to dance.’ It still gives me nightmares. I can’t sleep the whole night due to anxiety because I don’t know how to…”

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Notwithstanding her fear of dancing, Sonali Bendre went on to become part of many recognizable Bollywood soundtracks of her era. But she insists none of it felt natural at the time. “Trust me, it was not effortless at all. It was scary.”

The turning point came during “English Babu Desi Mem,” the Shah Rukh Khan-led film directed by Praveen Nischol. Sonali Bendre recalls frankly telling the filmmaker that she could not dance before signing on.

“When I did ‘English Babu Desi Mem,’ I was aware I didn’t know dancing. So, when I heard the story and script, I told Pravin Nishchol, ‘Okay, I really want to do it, but I don’t know how to dance, so what are we going to do?’”

What followed became one of the most defining moments of her early career. The legendary choreographer Saroj Khan was not impressed. “That was my first time, and Saroj ji said, ‘Heroine ko toh naachna bhi nahi aata,’ (the heroine doesn’t even know how to dance), and she stormed out of Satyam Hall, saying, ‘Who is this? I can’t teach this one.’”

This incident, Sonali says, “immediately triggered self-doubt” at a time when she was still finding her footing in the industry. “But that was the ambition. When she said that, it was like, ‘What the hell?’ You start wrestling with the imposter syndrome.”

It was then that a young Ahmed Khan, then assisting Saroj Khan, stepped in to train her. “Ahmed Khan would pick me up before I went to the set in the early morning. We would rehearse together. He would bribe me with chocolates and get the work done from me. And then I would go on set, and that’s how I started learning what I was supposed to shoot for in ‘English Babu Desi Mem.’”

Sonali also reflects on the strange reality of entering films at a time when acting was not even a part of her long-term ambition. Having come out of the Stardust talent circuit, she says the early years made her realize how valuable opportunities in cinema truly were.

Over time, that pressure transformed into a personal benchmark rather than a race for stardom. For her, the goal was never to attain perfection overnight. “It became about improving with every film, every rehearsal and every song that once terrified me.”