I am trying to be an Ambarsari

It all began with the movies. Back in Russia, Anna (little Anna, then) was heavily into watching dubbed Hindi films. She loved them all — especially the sensitive, melodramatic ones. Her passion for movies flared yet another passion — one for classical Indian dance. "I watched this South Indian movie about the life of a classical dancer. And I knew I had found my calling. Dance is what it had to be."

But what dance — Kathak, Bharatnatyam, Odissi…? That she wasn’t clear about, until fate took her to the Festival of India held at Moscow. This was in 1987-88. "There I saw an impressive Kuchipudi performance by Shobha Naidu. It was love at first performance."

After years of futile efforts in obtaining a student visa, she finally reached Hydrabad on a tourist visa — to formally begin her tryst with Kuchipudi… under none other than Shobha Naidu. Who else?!

Three-and-a-half-years of rigorous training and she was ready for solo performances. She impressed dance-lovers at quite a few places in India.

Later she went back to Russia to open a dance school — "Anugama." Here, she donned the mantle of a guru. "It was heartening to see that even in St Petersburg as many as 150 enthusiasts got themselves enrolled to learn this unique dance form which originated in a village called Kuchipudi. Hence the name," Anna informs us.

As she recounts those days, she turns nostalgic. "We had a perfect guru-shishya relationship, very different from the student-teacher relationship you find in Europe."

One day, a student brought along an Indian friend to the school. One look at her and the friend was completely bowled over. The feeling was mutual. The relationship grew. Marriage followed. "We’ve been married for three years now, and have a little baby," she smiles. Her husband is a sales trainee.

Settled in Amritsar now, Anna says: "I cannot live without dances, theatre, drama. But Amritsar has no cultural life. The cultural scenario here is very poor. There are few classical dance and music performance. Hardly Fewer people are aware of them."

These days she is learning to speak and understand Punjabi as "everyone at home speaks the language." There have been other adjustments also — like food. But she managed well on that front. "I love kulche-chhole and malai wali lassi.."

Social life is close to zero. "It’s work and home," she tells us. But she is not complaining. However, there is one problem. "It is written on my face that I am a foreigner. So, people who don’t know me treat me as an outsider." Then, softly she adds: "I’m trying to be an Ambarsari".