Biography
Learning never ends and therefore, I consider myself a student of dance even today. At the age of five, I was initiated into a different style of Indian classical dance, bharatnatyam and was trained for 10 years by Meenakshi Ramachandran in Bangalore, India. When the prospects of learning kathak became a reality and I started to tread its path, I fell in love with the style. My training in bharatnatyam and in North Indian classical vocal music became my backbone and my soul embraced this new form. This was the year 1993. Through several sweat-drenched years of prancing and a Nritya Visharad (equivalent to a Bachelor’s Degree) in kathak, there has been no looking back.
Lucky enough to have been born into a family of musicians, my earliest memories are of visiting the recording studios or sitting through hours of classes and rehearsals or working with my Bharatnatyam dance teacher on choreographies to my parents’ songs. My parents, Sumitra and Pratapkumar Toliya are vocal artists and music teachers and have produced several music albums. My late sister, Parul, was a student of sitar and a well-known music journalist of her times. They, and my gurus, have been my mentors-cum-friends throughout and have helped me learn, grow, re-discover and reinvent myself.
