Desi MJ?

‘‘I’m very picky about the songs I choose,” says the 29-year-old who looks more wannabe actor than choreographer. “I listen to the song and only if I think I can do something exciting with it, do I take it on.’’

‘‘I hardly do more than three songs a year,’’ he says, sitting languidly in a chair, mid-rehearsal for a world tour. He exudes an air of nothing-can-stop-me-now confidence.

The revelation seems less surprising when one learns he works nearly five months for each song, and handles everything from conceptualisation to promo-editing.

Hegde’s affair with dance started when he was a school boy at Umaid Bhai Patel School in the Mumbai suburb of Malad, and there’s been no looking back. He’s never had any formal training, he just worked with a troupe of boys in college, starting winning awards and one fine day found himself directing a song for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Khamoshi.

He’s ambitious, determined and a perfectionist. A complete go-getter. But that doesn’t mean that he’s no fun to be around. Judging by the way he horses around with his troupe, you know he isn’t as tough as he’d

like to appear.

Competition, for him, doesn’t come from his contemporaries in the industry. He aims much higher—to direct songs that meet international standards. ‘‘Part of Kambakth Ishq was inspired by Madonna’s Human Nature, but I think I did a better job. Madonna must have worked for six days on the box sequence, I finished it in four hours,’’ he claims.

For Hegde, the buck doesn’t stop at dancing. He is working on his very own music album, which will, again, be a one-man show. Having already composed and recorded two songs, the as-yet untitled album will seek to establish him as an all-rounder. With a penchant for racy, fast-paced rhythms, he wants his music to be different from the current fare.

‘‘Nobody in the industry can sing and dance. I’m also working on my own film. It’s a musical comedy

and I’ve already scripted it,’’ he says.

While all this may seem a tad egoistic, he is quick to talk about the performers who have inspired him. He can only hope to someday match Amitabh Bachchan’s larger-than-life dialogue delivery, Kishore Kumar’s magical voice and of course, Michael Jackson’s gravity-defying moonwalk.