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The belly guy

Behind the raging success of his hip-shaking video, Eshan Hilal, a 24-year-old male belly dancer, is a man who battled gender prejudices to pursue his passion

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Growing up, Eshan Halil was repeatedly the subject of scorn from family and ridicule from peers, but the obstacles didn’t stop him from following his natural calling for dance
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Eshan Hilal has enjoyed dancing ever since he can recall. Even as a child he couldn’t help but move to the rhythm the moment he heard music. While this amused his cousins and relatives, it didn’t go down well with his conservative family who felt it was disgraceful for a Pathan boy, the descendant of a family that traces its roots back to Turkey, to be singing and dancing.

A natural performer

“One evening, we were playing antakshari in our village in Uttar Pradesh and I started dancing. Soon my aunts and grandmother got to know and started watching along with others. I thought they were enjoying it. But when I stopped, my grandmother scolded me; dance was meant for boys from lower classes, she said, and threatened to complain to my father. I was really scared and promised that I would never dance again,” recalls the 24-year-old belly dancer who still shares an awkward relationship with his father.

Hilal didn’t keep his promise and was soon dancing at functions against the wishes of his parents, who would then create a scene and beat him up. On several occasions, he was beaten so hard that he got fractures. Once, he even ran away from home, but returned after six to seven months when his parents put out a notice in a newspaper saying his mother was ill.

Main bhi Madhuri

Like many of his friends, Hilal too was mesmerised by Madhuri Dixit, but he didn’t know the name of the dance she performed. Asking around, he learnt it was Kathak and expressed a desire to learn it.

“My mother slapped me and called me a bhaand, a word I didn’t even understand. I asked my teacher and learnt that it referred to someone who sang and danced. I accepted the label. Soon I started missing tuitions to attend dance classes with a guru from the Lucknow gharana. I came first in the level-one examination and went home with the trophy. I was again beaten up.

Journey to belly dance

Hilal stopped dancing for a year when he moved to college in Mumbai, fearing his new friends would reject him. But in the second year, he was back on stage, performing a Kathak piece at a function. It was then that he first wrote to Meher Malik, a well-known belly dancer who had a group called Banjara, saying he wanted to learn the dance form. But Malik rejected his application saying she didn’t teach boys.

Six years later, he met Malik again. “She was auditioning for a production in 2015, and even though my performance was hideous, she chose me. It was belly dancing that taught me to love my body with all its scars and oddities.”

Juggling lives

Hilal then moved back to live with his parents in Delhi. It was not easy to leave a 10-5 job and learn a new dance form from six in the morning until midnight. But Hilal doesn’t complain, and says he enjoys every moment of rehearsals.

“When with my parents, I am a regular guy wearing T-shirt and pants. Outside I wear my accessories... I am getting offers from reality TV shows, but they do not like it at all. I fail to make them understand that I don’t dance because it is my hobby, but because it gives me peace, pleasure, positive energy and power,” says Hilal who has received offers from India’s Got Talent and two other shows from leading channels, and is likely to participate in one of them.

Though he has made his peace, there are certain aspects of his life that he is still not willing to speak about – among them is his sexuality. “I don’t want to speak about it because the moment I do so, attention will switch to it. Right now I want all the focus to be on my performance.”

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