It’s hard to imagine Madhuri Dixit as being 59. But then you see how beautifully she has aged, and how fabulously she has managed her life, and you know 59 is just a number that the ageless beauty has encountered in her beautiful journey of life.Madhuri’s beginnings as an actress could never have indicated how far she would go. Her rise was not meteoric, but slow and steady. She started her career modestly in a Rajshri film Abodh in 1984, which was based on Rabindranath Tagore’s short story Samapti. Aparna Sen and Jaya Bhaduri also did films based on the same story at the beginning of their careers.Though the film flopped, Madhuri made enough of an impact for ‘Showman’ Subhash Ghai to notice her. He offered Madhuri a dance number in his multi-starrer Karma. But when he saw her rushes, Ghai decided Madhuri was more heroine material than an item girl. He decided to scrap the item song in Karma and cast her as a full-fledged heroine opposite Jackie Shroff in Uttar Dakshin.Shockingly Subhash Ghai reveals to me that Madhuri couldn’t dance!Ghai says, “When I presented Madhuri in Uttar Dakshin, she was so raw and inexperienced she didn’t know how to walk or dance on screen. I remember how appalled I was on the first day of shooting. I remember sitting her down and telling her how important the walk was. I had to create an entire persona called Madhuri Dixit in Uttar Dakshin and Ram Lakhan. She had the biggest of co-stars in these films. She couldn’t appear inexperienced before them.”Shockingly, Ghai says Madhuri couldn’t dance. “After I saw her in Abodh, when I re-introduced her she had no idea of film dancing. I had to travel to Chennai with Saroj Khan and train and rehearse with Madhuri. Only after that did Madhuri manage Laila mar gayee in Uttar Dakshin and Ho ramji bada dukh dina in Ram Lakhan.”