US girl debuts in Bollywood

Gayatri Patel

There is newbie Gayatri Patel, a US-born-and-bred girl who makes her debut in ‘Let’s Dance,’ playing a dance teacher.

Releasing on June 19, ‘Let’s Dance’ is directed by film editor Aarif Sheikh,  a National Award-winner for ‘Samay – When Time Strikes’.

Terming Gayatri a ‘dancing tornado’, Aarif is all praise for the girl. “She’s sparkling,” he says and stresses that when it comes to dance, she can beat all the current Bollywood heroines hands down.

“I've done jazz, hip-hop, filmy, Kathak and Natwari dancing in the film and I’m pretty excited about it all,” informs Gayatri. “I’m discussing other movies now and I’m here to stay,” she quips with a smile.

“I could have very well been a doctor like my father, rather than an actress, had I not started performing on stage at the age of eight,” she reveals.

At the tender age of seven, Gayatri went to a local Indian dance competition in Dothan, Alabama and decided that she was going win the trophy the coming year.  She did win the next year and the year after that and the year after that, till they stopped the competition as she had none. Now that’s something!

While in the United States, the spunky girl graduated from high-school and went on to study at the acclaimed Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Here, she also won the ‘Miss India Georgia’ title and later emerged the first runner-up at ‘Miss India USA’.

“Around this time, I realized that I loved theatre, dance and acting, more than studying science,” she quips. Finally, her family decided she shift base to Mumbai to pursue acting. Reaching here, Gayatri spent time taking tips from theatre top-guns Satyadev Dubey and Makrand Deshpande, did an acting workshop with Veena Mehta and played the role of Ophelia in Neeraj Kabir’s play ‘Hamlet’. She also did three music videos for Venus opposite Inder Kumar and Jugal Hansraj, till one day, National Award winning editor Aarif Sheikh decided to launch her as the lead in his directorial debut ‘Let’s Dance’.

‘Let’s Dance’ has the debutante playing a simple but determined dance teacher, who on her path to fame, changes course, to motivate a group of underprivileged kids.

Suhani (Gayatri Patel) is a passionate young dancer, who has dreamt of being a star her entire life. She lives with her best friend Anoushka (Sugandha Garg) and teaches dance at a rented hall owned by Sharmaji (Anjan Srivastav).

Meanwhile, fourteen year old street kid Aftab (Abhaas Yadav), also a gifted dancer, has never dreamt of being anything in life. While Suhani can see nothing beyond starring in a music video, Aftab cannot see beyond spending his life on the mean streets of Mumbai with a gang of kids, including his brother Ali (Nikuunj Padaya) and closest friend Kallu (Paras Arora). Suhani is moved by the talent these street kids possess and wants the world to give them their due.

Enter Neil (Ajay Chaudhary), who not only falls head-over-heels in love with Suhani but also decides to help her realise her dreams of becoming a dancing star. The only thing that’s stopping Neil from winning her love is popular video director Rehaan Jones aka RJ, who is more determined to make Suhani the next superstar.