Erika Nandi Ingrid

Itanagar, Feb. 13: A captivating dance recital at a music concert by none other than the famed trio — Yamini Krishnamurthy, Sonal Mansingh and Mrinalini Sarabhai — in Kiel changed the course of her life.

Four decades later, the German-born Erika Nandi Ingrid has herself become a captivating performer, earning a standing ovation from a discerning audience after a Bharatanatyam recital along with her granddaughter Karishma here last night.

But Ingrid, despite wowing audiences with classical Indian dance throughout the country and abroad since moving to India three decades ago, feels she does not know how to repay India which has given her so much by way of fame and family.

“India has given me a lot and I am duty-bound morally and otherwise to reciprocate, but I am yet to know how I could,” she says. Her audience, however, has no doubt that she has done enough. “She herself is a dancer par excellence and now her granddaughter has also picked up from her. She is no less Indian than we are. She just needs to keep on performing as she did tonight,” a member of the audience said after the musical soiree organised Nriytangan Music and Dance Academy in Itanagar came to an end.

Ingrid settled in India after marrying an Indian engineer. Bubbly and full of zest, her journey from ballet to Bharatanatyam started with an autograph “of the doe-eyed Sonal Mansingh signed with her eyeliner” is no less captivating than her performance last night.

“I was in for a real treat of pure and enchanting Indian classical music. Their dance left an indelible imprint in my mind. The subtle variation of, taal, laya and static and dynamic forms of Bharatanatyam is still etched in my mind. It certainly changed the course of my life.

“Thereafter, I decided to pursue Oriental performing art, especially Indian classical dance. The creative amalgamation of sur, taal and laya of Indian classical music in vocal, instrumental and dance forms began to enchant me. The enchantment soon transformed into a deep love for Indian culture,” recalls Ingrid, now in her late fifties.

During her growing up years, German music was fast losing its flavour, she says, in the course of hobnobbing with run-of-the-mill American music. “I started losing interest in music as it was pursued in the then Germany and fell headlong for Indian folk, classical music and dance, including Afro-Asian tap dance.

“Music was in my veins, as I grew up watching my grandfather Gustav Marbach playing the piano and violin in the concerts in Kiel. My mother was very supportive, although my father was always opposed to the idea of my taking to music,” she says. Around the time, much like her music, she found her man from the country of her dreams, India. She fell in love with Simanta Nandi, an engineer working with a German company in Kiel.

They married in November 1966. Upon her arrival at her in-laws home in Dhubri district, she developed an interest in Bihu and started learning the dance form.

She also learnt the subtle nuances of Bharatanatyam under the tutelage of Kalamandalam Thankamani Kutty in Calcutta in 1980. She learnt Kathak dance from Ramgopal Mishra and Sushmita Mishra around the same time.