She strikes a fine balance between academics and her passion. In the classroom, she is focussed on understanding of the law and its several complexities but once out of it, life is all about dance and service to the community.
An undergraduate in LLB at Institute of Law, Nirma University in Ahmedabad, city girl Alakananda Devi Duggirala says she is relishing the best of both worlds.
Initiated into Kuchipudi dance when she was all of four years, she proved to be a quick learner and there was no stopping her once she mastered the nuances of the classical dance form.
Her recent inaugural dance performance at a local programme won accolades from the audience. Exhibiting mastery in intricate footwork, sinuous grace and use of eyes to express myriad moods, she floored the spectators with her abhinaya and bhava.
“Kuchipudi is an amazing form of relaxation. If one misses seeing and knowing this dance one also misses seeing a great deal of living dance forms and the ancient theories in their fullness,”
Watching her perform, it is easy to comprehend that Kuchipudi is a unique blend of control and abandon, strength and delicacy, alternating movements of pure dance, rhythmic bright, vivacious, full of beauty and grace and narrative moments based on the Hindu mythology, where the focus is on the use of gestures, facial expressions and body language.
Performing Kuchipudi at cultural programmes in Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala, Odisha, Chennai and now in Gujarat besides Andhra Pradesh was an educating experience, she says.
The bubbly youngster played active role in floating the Ahmedabad chapter of ‘Oneness Organisation, a service organisation based in Visakhapatnam. “I joined eight other like-minded friends toreach out to orphan kids, hapless residents of homes for the aged and other sections,” she says.
A picture of simplicity, Alakananda demonstrates that perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
