Despite being a professional in the IT sector, and with almost no exposure to the craft of Bharatnatyam, Neha Khaitan, an expat who came to the City of Pearls in 2005, fell in love with the dance form, took it up, and is now a performing artiste.
Currently working at Informatica, the danseuse had watched a performance directed by her guru, Hemamalini Arni and was instantly magnetised towards Bharatanatyam. The 32 year-old would later take up training under Arni as her student and perform her Arangetram in June 2011.
Neha had recently performed in the city, starting her recital with a traditional shlokam - Gajananam Bhoot Ganadhi Sevitham.
Ask her about how she developed her relatively new found love, and she says, “The structure, the dance, the movement, all of these were very enchanting and I was hooked. My first exposure to the dance was through a troupe that performed my guru’s choreography and that’s how it all began.”
Having had no prior exposure whatsoever, the journey to the stage was a difficult one.
“It was all very alien to me; the music, the movements - all of it was very new to me. So it was naturally quite tough, both on me and my body. I had to re-learn how my body moved to be able to fit the dance.”
Though a relative novice to the profession, (and profession indeed as Neha juggles between her love for dance and her professional life at Informatica), the danseuse has managed quite a few shows in the few years, the last one performed under the critical eye of Kathak exponent Mangala Bhatt.
“At every dance I do feel an improvement. At the last performance, I felt very controlled, even though at times I did feel very tired. Ms Bhatt was gracious enough to oblige as the chief guest and was quite appreciative.”
So how easy, or not, is it to be a lead engineer and also a professional dancer? “It is very challenging and does get extremely taxing. As far as my company is concerned, as long as I finish my work, there is no issue. But honestly, I sometimes find dancing tougher than being an engineer,” says the artiste who hails from Kolkata.
However, that doesn’t seem to deter Neha as she adds, “Its been a never ending ladder to climb. I’ve learnt a lot from this, most importantly how to manage time. There is never too little time to do anything; its just a question of how driven and organised one is.”
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