Image courtesy: Fawzan Husain
He’s India’s homegrown Michael Jackson. Tell Prabhu Deva that and he smiles shyly, “It feels nice. But I don’t let it go to my head. It goes straight to my heart.” And heart is where his dance is. Sit with him for a while and you’ll be charmed by his no-airs persona. His Tamil accent is marked but that and his childlike demeanor engage you. We’re on the sets of Any Body Can Dance. Youngsters are busy strutting their stuff on the sets. Prabhu Deva watches them and confesses to feeling jittery. He admits he wasn’t as good as them at their age. Coming from an ace dancer, that’s quite a statement.
Talking about his directorial venture Rowdy Rathore with Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha, he says, “I make hardcore fun films! My aim is to entertain the audience and make them happy.” For Prabhu, the legendary performer Michael Jackson has always been an inspiration. “There was something about him… his style! You saw him dance and you got inspired. He was electric and energetic.” MJ’s sudden death on June 25, 2009 came as a shock to Prabhu. “I thought it was just a rumour. But then I saw the news on television. I was disheartened, I had lost my idol.”
The choreographer-turned-director started his career at 15, assisting his dance director-father Mugur Sundar. “More than dance, I learnt how to behave with people. For a child, his father is his hero.” His dad’s cool reaction to his failure in class 11 exams, turned his life around forever. “I didn’t study, which is why I failed. I was scared that my father would beat me up. But to my surprise he tapped me on my back and said, ‘Don’t worry. Do what you want to do in life’. So here I am. He supported me when I wanted to join films. There’s a trigger point in everyone’s life. For me, it was my dad’s permission to let me do what I wanted.”
Another person he admires is South superstar Chiranjeevi. “Chiranjeevi sir was confident about me (Prabhu Deva directed him in Shankar Dada Zindabad) when I lacked confidence. He took care of me like an elder brother. He’s a superstar, yet he’d practice dance for two hours.”
As a budding choreographer, Prabhu’s first experience was rather challenging. He had to teach Kamal Haasan certain dance steps. “We were shooting Vetri Vizha (1987) in Chennai with Kamal sir. My father was busy, so he asked me to choreograph it. I agreed but I had butterflies in my stomach. I had done a couple of songs for Kamal sir as my father’s assistant but had no idea of his stature. Director Pratap Pothan told me, ‘If the choreography is good, we’ll put your name in the credits and if it’s bad we’ll put your father’s’,” he laughs.
He’s grateful to dance masters Dharmaraj and Udipi Lakshminaryanan for changing his life. “I am originally a Bharat Natyam dancer. I had my classes at 6.30 am. I’d attend my classes half-heartedly and be thoroughly bored. So suddenly between Bharat Natyam steps, I’d break into a MJ step. My gurus would be angry. But whatever dance I know and the reason why you are interviewing me today is because of them. They are my life. I love dancing and hope to continue till I’m 65.”
He impressed his aficionados with his stupefying dance moves in songs like Urvasi Urvasi and Mukkabla in Kadhalan (1994) opposite Nagma, which was also dubbed in Hindi and released as Hamse Hai Muqabala. He later choreographed for films like Aaj Ka Goonda Raaj, Gumrah, Bombay, Pukar, Lakshya and No Entry (between 1992-2005). His debut in Hindi film industry as a director was with Salman Khan’s Wanted, a blockbuster. “I always dreamt of directing films. But someone had to give me a break. It happened with the Telugu film Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana in 2005,” he smiles.
Ask him if he’d rather be a better actor or director and he replies, “Definitely director! It is a bigger responsibility. More money is involved. If you make a mistake as an actor or a musician, you can wriggle out but as a director, you can’t afford to fail. It affects too many people.”
His personal life has been under great duress. His recent break-up with South actress Nayanthara made headlines. They were to get married after Prabhu divorced his wife Ramlatha. Apparently, Nayanthara even changed her religion so she could marry Prabhu (she was born as Diana Mariam Kurian to Christian-Malayalee parents). While Nayanthara has publicly accepted the break-up, Prabhu is yet to come to terms with it. He refuses to talk about it and even relationships in general. “If I say anything on relationships or break-ups, it will be related to my personal experience. That may hurt someone and I wouldn’t want that.”
A year before he started seeing Nayanthara, Prabhu lost his oldest son, 13-year-old Vishal, to cancer in 2008. At the mere mention of Vishal’s name, Prabhu’s eyes well up. Choking with emotion, he’s unable to speak. He gesticulates that we avoid the topic. Sensing his pain, I ask about his other two sons and his face lights up. “Neither of the two wants to be a dancer. It’s too early to say. They feel happy when they see me on screen. But they’re shy. They hide behind me when my fans gather,” he says. For him the best time is that which he spends with his kids. The temperamental Prabhu volunteers, “I just love it when my children are playing nearby. I feel calm. It feels like heaven.”
While movies, games and ice cream de-stress him, he has a mission in life. “I want to start my own dance school.’’ And we’d be the first ones to enroll.
