8-year-old Aditya Vinod Patil lifts the trophy of ‘Dance Deewane Juniors’

New Delhi, July 18 For 8-year old Aditya Vinod Patil, his victory in ‘Dance Deewane Juniors’ is quite unbelievable and with this he has fulfilled his grandfather’s dream.

He told IANS: “I never thought that I would be the winner but I am happy that I fulfilled my dada ji’s(paternal grandfather) dream.”

The first season of the dance reality show ended up with Aditya being declared as the winner and the trophy and Rs 20 lakh was given to him by judges Neetu Kapoor and Marzi Pestonji during the finale episode.

Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan, who appeared on the show to promote his movie, ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, also praised the winner. Along with Aditya, the other finalists on the show were Prateek Kumar Naik and Geet Kaur Bagga.

Aditya, who was mentored by choreographer Pratik Utekar, was often praised by the judges for his dance moves and acts.

He recalled the biggest surprise on the show, saying: “In one of the episodes, my dada ji was invited and I was not told about this before, so when I saw him I just went close to him and hugged him. That was the most memorable moment for me.”

Pratik, who has trained Aditya throughout the thirteen weeks for giving his best and competing with other contestants, said that it was always challenging to teach dance moves to such a small child like Aditya.

“When it comes to dance performance, it has to go a notch higher with their performance value. If it is just dancing, people would not connect and for me, Aditya being such a small child my challenge every week was to how to make him feel the act because I do believe in conceptualising the act. He is in the show for tap dancing but beyond that I have to train him and come up with new concepts to make his dance look fresh and more appealing. This was tough for me and Aditya as well.”

He added: “It was not an easy competition for Aditya as there were many contestants who were excellent and had participated in other reality shows. For Aditya it was his first competition but the way he improved himself with every performance and excelled was just unbelievable. So yes, keeping the competition so tough, but yet delivering our own best was the main motivation.”

The show, which premiered on April 23 was judged by Neetu Kapoor, Nora Fatehi and choreographer and dancer Marzi Pestonji and hosted by Karan Kundrra. During the finale episode, Aamir Khan said that he is a great fan of veteran actress Neetu Kapoor and they both performed on the song ‘Aati Kya Khandala’.

The show aired on Colors.