Meet Bollywood's Latest Sweetheart 'Disha Patani'

From an aspiring air force pilot to an up and coming actor, meet Disha Patani – Bollywood’s latest sweetheart

- Aishwarya Dravid

It’s 1pm on a lazy Saturday afternoon when I get on a call with Disha Patani. Lazy for me, but not so much for Patani who’s been attending events while nursing a broken foot. She broke it during kickboxing class she tells me, which happens to be just one of the many things that Patani excels at, dance and basketball being some of her other vices.

Her first vice, dance, is what planted her in the hearts of millions around the country, with ‘Befikra’ an independent music video by the Meet brothers starring her and Tiger Shroff. It was Patani’s big break, intriguing everyone. But there was no strategy there. It was just plain old love for dance. “I honestly never thought about all this. I was already shooting for my film and it was slated for release in three months, so it wouldn’t have made sense to shoot a video and have it release before my film. But I didn’t think of it like that. All I knew was that I like dancing, and I was getting a chance to dance with Tiger, who is an amazing dancer.”

If you follow her Instagram account, you’d believe Patani. With videos of her dancing to the hottest tracks, her go-to style is hiphop – I wonder if dancing was ever a professional choice. “No, I’m not so good honestly. My sister is an amazing dancer though and she’s the reason I developed an interest in dance in the first place. I started classes only a year ago and I learn only choreographies, I haven’t learnt the basics. I’m nowhere close to the dancers I follow; I don’t even consider myself a dancer.”