Hyderabad: Renowned Bollywood choreographer Saroj Khan died last Friday due to cardiac arrest at the age of 71. In an interview with a TV channel, Saroj Khan had revealed why she reverted to Islam leaving the Hindu religion.
Saroj Khan told that she was a Hindu and her name was Saroj Kishan Chand Singh Nagpal. Her family was Sindhi Punjabi. Recalling the time when she reverted to Islam Saroj Khan said she met her husband (Roshan Khan) and they fell in love. But she clarified that she converted not because of her love but because she loved Islam. She said that she used to see small kids praying, which she didn’t find in Hinduism.
“So I myself went to Jumma Masjid the biggest Masjid in Bombay and changed my religion. And I became a Muslim”, recalled Khan.
She further asserted that she had converted to Islam on her own wish. Many people asked her if there was any pressure on her but she said, “it was not so. I got inspired by the religion of Islam.”
Saroj Khan said “I see dreams… I lost a baby girl… In my dreams she used to come and call me from inside the mosque, pleading ‘Mummy please come inside, come inside’.”
Saroj Khan was born on November 22, 1948, in Bombay State. She had begun her career as a child artist at the age of 3 and later as a background dancer in the late 1950s. Earlier, she had married her guru, dance director, B. Sohanlal when she was just 13 years old. She gave birth to her first child at the age of 14. Saroj Khan and Sohanlal had separated in 1965, but when he had suffered a heart attack, they had reunited. Then she gave birth to her second child, Hina Khan, but she died after 8 months.
Sohanlal had refused to give their children his name, so, Saroj Khan later married Sardar Roshan Khan a Pathan in 1975 who was willing to accept her children and give them his name. She had said “He turned out to be Godsend, and I haven’t regretted my decision to date. He gave me a lot of love and his first wife and I live like sisters today. You accept a lot when you love a man.”