Amna: When I was around 11 years old or so I began taking classes just casually due to a lot of pressure from my mother to become girlish – which I wasn’t as a child. In Pakistan, due to a lot of state imposed cultural eradication, the state has given only some form of classical dances a little bit of backing. One dance is called Kathak and when I saw it performed, I became mesmerised by it. Not only by the form but also by how a story could be conveyed in a non-verbal way. And when my mother finally said to me: You need to start acting gracefully. I started taking those dancing classes.

There was a lot of this patriarchal push on the girls in my class. There were like 20 of us, who had been forced by their parents or mothers to take these dancing lessons. Not to become professional dancers, but strictly to become more graceful. It was something totally unheard of to take this up professionally. So, it was both – my initial interest and my mother’s views – that influenced me into learning Kathak.

This was 20 years ago. My teacher back then was already in her 70s and had taught this dance for five decades. She was an interesting person, but also very pessimistic. She often said “You know – I have been teaching for so long, and I don’t have one single student who’s taking this professionally forward.” And listening to this over the years, being inspired by her, letting her condition my body and teaching me the dance Bharatanatyam, which ultimately became my dancing style, made me consider dance as a profession.