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 It is strangely appropriate. Shah, the
16-year-old son of a metal welder, dared to give up his studies
a few years back to chase his ballet dreams.
He has now received an invitation from the American Ballet
Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in New York City for
a four-year course.
And all because of a video clip.
Some months ago, Yehuda Maor, Shah's instructor at the Danceworx
Performing Arts Academy in Mumbai, sent the artistic director of
the school a clip of Shah dancing.
The director, Cynthia Harvey, jumped at the idea, insisting Shah
turn down a rival offer from the Royal Ballet School in London
and attend her school's pre-professional program.
In Maor's estimation, Shah, the youngest of five siblings, is an
unusually rare talent.
"I don't believe in reincarnation, but if I did he is Rudolf
Nureyev," Maor said, referring to the ballet great once
described as juggling "his weight on his feet the way magicians
juggle objects with their hands".
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Not long ago, Shah was in a different kind of school, one run by the
Mumbai municipality. He studied up to the 10th grade, but said he
"wasn't interested in school anymore".
Enter Maor, who signed up on Twitter and has since tweeted eight
times asking for financial assistance for Shah and another gifted
dancer.
The appeals have brought -- among other things -- a scrum of
reporters and photographers to the dance studio, a development that
annoys Maor.
"We're trying to work here," he told two reporters before turning
them away and as New York-bound Shah watched a news clip of himself
twirling on a rooftop.
(Editing by Sudipto Ganguly)
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