Others merely dance. Prabhu Deva does the impossible. And now, he’s making his Bollywood directorial debut
Strange things happen to Prabhu Deva at airports. No, he isn’t questioned about his name but quaint requests always come his way. Men want to touch his back to make sure he has a “spinal cord”, women touch his hand to check if he has “any bones” while kids address him as the “rubber-band uncle.”

When you move as if you are floating on air and when your name has become a compliment itself (check out any dance talent show on television and the highest degree of delight a judge can express will undoubtedly be something like, “You dance just like Prabhu Deva”), all this attention is hardly unwarranted. But the 36-year-old boneless wonder of Urvashi Urvashi and Muqabla Muqabla fame shrugs it off with a wisecrack. “I’m grateful that people like my dancing. Since I can’t do much in life except dance, it’s a relief.”

For someone who has acted in 30 films and choreographed in 100-odd movies, Prabhu is an industry in himself. The dancing sensation has just arrived from Chennai to promote his Hindi directorial debut, Wanted (a remake of his 2007 Tamil hit, Pokkiri). If he is nervous about the film, he isn’t showing it. The Salman Khan-starrer has masala entertainer written all over it. The action sequences, especially a shot of Salman smashing a guy’s head on the steel bar in a local train, have got trade circles touting it as Salman’s Ghajini. The director in him comes to the fore when he talks about his treatment of the undercover cop drama. “We’ve not overtly stylised the action scenes because we want Wanted to be a masala trip. Salman bhai has kept it real so you’ll see him doing a lot of physical action,” he says.

... contd.