Students practise at the Rashbehari Avenue unit of Bani Chakra. (Sanat Kr Sinha)

Raisa Pradhan, 8, and Aratrika Banerjee, 9, have found themselves a new dance teacher in town — “Aishwarya aunty”!

The Bharatanatyam students learnt their steps last weekend under the watchful eye of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who chatted and joked with them and even made sure her “little ones” were given fruits and water to beat the heat, on the sets of Mani Ratnam’s Raavan.

The doors of Saheb Kuthi, shut to the world ever since the Bachchan bahu stepped into the Agarpara bungalow by the Hooghly to shoot for the Hindi-Tamil bilingual film, had opened to let in a bunch of 30 Bharatanatyam learners handpicked from the music and dance school Bani Chakra.

“Mani Ratnam’s team came to our Rashbehari Avenue centre, looking for girls between five and eight years old,” said Swaminathan Pillai, the Bharatanatyam teacher at Bani Chakra who led the team through the three-day stint.

All 30 girls, from Bani Chakra’s Rashbehari, Garia, Behala and Shyambazar branches, were put through a quick screen test by “Mani Sir”, who sat through their solo performances.

“On the first day of our shoot, I was asked to compose a two-minute dance piece that would fit into both the Hindi and Tamil versions of Raavan. I chose the Bharatanatyam piece Mallari,” said Swaminathan, who choreographed the piece and put the children dressed in pavada (traditional south Indian skirt and blouse) through a rehearsal.

After a daylong wait, their “beautiful” teacher arrived in a mauve sari draped in the kalakshetra style. “Aishwarya ma’am waved at us when she saw us. She smiled at me and said ‘hi’, and she kissed the smaller children,” gushed Aratrika, a Class IV student of Assembly of God Church.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan at the shoot for Raavan

“Aishwarya kept hugging the children and making faces at them in between the shots. She would tell them to look away from the camera while shooting. She chatted with them in Hindi and asked me to translate into Bengali what the children couldn’t understand,” added Swaminathan, who thinks Aishwarya is “a fine dancer and a quick learner”.

On the last day of the Bani Chakra brigade’s tryst with Ash, the stage was set for a song-and-dance item — set to tune by A.R. Rahman, choreographed by danseuse-actress Shobana — under a bougainvillea bower.

While Mani Sir was concerned about getting the expressions right, Aishwarya insisted on the children getting the right amount of rest in between shots. “Every time the kids looked tired, Aishwarya would order fruits and water for them,” said Swaminathan.

Shooting in the heat was indeed very tiring, but little Raisa of Shree Shikshayatan braved it to be with her “Aishwarya aunty”. “She was really nice. I was very excited about meeting her. Dancing in the sun was a little difficult but it was fun,” summed up the little resident of Baranagar.