King Bharati
Gone are the days when glamour used to be the symbol of metro cities and people from other states used to envy them for being closer to the glamour industry.
Jammu and Kashmir which has earned a bad name due to violence for the past 23 years has also earned a name in carving its niche in Bollywood shunning its past of being only the host of the movie biggies during their shoots upto early 90’s
Now there are numerous examples of talented people from this state making it big in Bollywood on the silver screen and other stages of the world in whatever way they can and yes Jammu is not lagging far behind.
With Bollywood, the first thing that comes to our mind is the larger than life film stars dancing to the musical beats of Hindi songs creating euphoria among masses who crave to join their league. And when dance comes to the mind of the Jammuites the name that is synonymous with dance in J&K is Master X who has the distinction of having given the concept of modern dance schools to J&K way back in 1990.
Master X or Ajit Singh or Happy Sir to his friends and fans who originally belongs to Kashmir started it all just at the age of six when his fascination to participate in school functions gave birth to his inner talent and started taking part in active dance and acting activities in schools at the age of nine.
The turning point came at the age of twelve when he received his first award and since then there has been no looking back.
“What I needed was just music and mirror and this passion for dance came to a point where I became the first person to introduce Gymnastics and Western Dance in Jammu and Kashmir in 1990 and soon became popular as Master X”, says Ajit the Master X.
Dedicating all his success to his late elder brother Lucky, Master X says that he will never forget how dancing has a great influence on his life and a huge learning experience all these years.
Master X soon became a household name for youngsters and schools who thronged him with requests to teach their students in schools and prepare them for various dance shows. After participating in many big shows in Jammu Master X like any other youngster aspired to join Bollywood and went to Mumbai at the age of 14 but due to lack of contacts, guidance and exposure he could not make it there and returned to Jammu to start his career as choreographer with many big schools like APS, Model Academy, Luthra Academy, Shastri Memorial School and many others.
To quote Master X, “there is no thinking involved in my choreography, I don’t work through images or ideas, I work through my body. Dancer does not dance well when he uses so called theories about dancing or pushes him or herself to dance but when a dancer dances he shows what he is and just lets his body to flow in ecstasy because everything is there in your body, you just have to explore it”.
Giving
in to the stiff resistance and wishes of his parents, relatives, friends and well wishers asking him to leave the profession, Master X was forced to leave choreography and join the Government services as an adhoc employee in Civil Secretariat but as they say one can never suppress the intense passion of a person for too long and he too left the job soon.
Since destiny had thought something else for this talented dancer, yet another turning point came into his dancing career in 1997, when he got an opportunity to go to United Arab Emirates (UAE) where instead of a regular run of the mill job he pursued his passion with more vigour and enthusiasm by joining as choreographer in Blue Diamond Music Centre Dubai.
In Dubai he actually got the real exposure of international standards in dancing and show business and participated in more than 300 shows and worked as a judge in more than 145 schools besides sharing stage in UAE with Bollywood biggies like Arbaaz Khan, Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala, Mukesh Rishi, Javed Jafri, Malaika Arora, Anu Malik, Sonu Nigam, Harbajan Mann, Sukhwinder Singh, Parvez Khan etc.
He worked with reputed companies of Dubai like Kala Kendra, Kala Shri, Golden Talent Music Centre, Blue Diamond etc and with such an experience at hand Master X finally opened his first own dancing school ‘Gurukul’ in Dubai in 2006.
With his school now in place his hardwork saw him preparing talent among children in Dubai while his units worked in movies like Naqaab, Jawar, Kaafir, Welcome etc besides venturing into Wedding Event Management. But deep inside his mind there was an inclination and attraction towards his own culture, city and people forcing him to take another plunge to come back to his roots to repay his country, state and hometown back what he got from it by establishing the first ever international standard dance institute under the name and style ‘Legends Dance Studio’ at Talab Tillo, Jammu, where he prepares children and adults both as dancers of international caliber.
“I want Bollywood to come to Jammu to search for talented dancers instead of our youngsters having to go there and with that mission I am teaching the children to make them compete with anybody in the world” says Master X about his future plans.
Master X plans some topnotch dance shows in Jammu where top Bollywood stars will be participating and conducting workshops for Jammu kids. He adds that since he has struggled very hard in life to achieve something and many times he was discouraged but some energy within him kept him going and wants to share his rich experience with Jammu kids so that they get well prepared for future career and won’t have to struggle as hard as he did.
To conclude I again quote his explanation for dancing, “I get very excited when I dance, as I love it with a deep passion and we dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams because we are dancers and we create dreams”.
(The author is a senior journalist and social activist)
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