Malaika reveals she was injured during Chaiyya chaiyya shoot

After all these years, super dancer Malaika has come out to reveal a shocking incident about the filming of the song. She was bleeding around the waist while dancing atop a moving train, she revealed.

“I fell several times while shooting for Chaiyya chaiyya. I would sway right and left owing to the strong winds, and to avoid that, the team tied me to the train with a rope that ran through my ghaghra. This was meant to help me balance and stay in sync with the train’s motion. Unfortunately, when I removed the rope, I discovered I had cuts along my waistline. I was bleeding, and everyone was worried,” she said, recalling the shooting for the iconic number on a reality dance show.

After watching a performance on the song during the show, the actress turned nostalgic. “With Shah Rukh, Mani Ratnam sir and cinematographer Santosh Sivan around — who have achieved so much — I felt really small. But, thanks to the love of the team, I did not miss my family,” she said. 

Composed by AR Rahman and penned by Gulzar, Chaiyya chaiyya made Malaika a dancing star in Bollywood. The Mani Ratnam film became popular not only for the spectacular performances by Shah Rukh, Manisha Koirala and Preity Zinta, but also for Malaika’s iconic dance number. The song, which was choreographed by Farah Khan, who won awards for the song’s choreography, is still loved by audiences. Malaika went on to perform numerous other blockbuster dances — from Maahi ve in Kaante to Munni badnaam in Dabangg and the recent Hello hello in “Pataakha”.