The rains this year have decided to play hide and seek with us. Some days, they’ve lashed the city with all their might and on others, it feels like a sunny afternoon in the month of May. However, we here at LDAB, pride ourselves in our punctuality and are exhilarated to set the spotlight of one of our star students who has been crowned ”Ballerina of the Month: July 2019”
Saanvi Desai, 9, has been with LDAB for almost a year and half now. A student of the prestigious St. Mary’s, Saanvi is the younger child of Mrunal and Milind Desai. Mrunal is a jewelry designer and owns her own label, Maanvi Jewels. Milind is a software engineer and works at Tech Mahindra. Her older brother, Pratham, is a 15-year old studying at Bishop’s School in Pune.
When quizzed about how Saanvi got involved with ballet, Mrunal excitedly talks about her daughter’s love for dance, ”Saanvi has always been a dancer. She excels at Bollywood contemporary. She has also studied Kathak. She recently received her Level 1 Certificate in this classical dance form. One of her good friends was learning ballet at LDAB and her curiosity for this western dance form got her started with LDAB.”
Saanvi’s has a variety of other interests beyond dance. She’s a voracious reader, Harry Potter is her favourite book series while Enid Blyton is her favourite author. She has also started training to become a serious badminton player. She’ll be playing next month at Deccan Gymkhana’s tournaments.
We chat more with Mrunal about Saanvi and she lights up like a proud parent while talking about her daughter, “Saanvi has the personality of an extrovert. She can strike up a conversation with you on any topic and keep you engrossed throughout. She never had any stage fright and that was very evident when she performed with grace & enthusiasm in the Annual functions at school and also in our housing society. When I saw her perform in the Nutcracker ballet concert arranged by LDAB, I was mesmerized by the whole act. Watching her perform that day on stage, while I sat in the audience with many of my relatives, will remain a proud moment for me.”
But she also has a funny tid-bit to add, ”Saanvi is a very meticulous person. She won’t miss a single ballet session at LDAB. This leaves us as a family with no scope to plan weekend outings or vacations at all.”
As always, we are also interested in the parenting philosophies of the parents of our star ballerinas. Giving her take, Mrunal says, “Parenting is a process where I’m always on my toes, still learning. I’m a mom to a 15 year-old teen boy and also to a pre-teen girl. Bringing them up have been two very contrasting experiences and I wouldn’t really call myself an expert, I’m still a student and I like it this way!”
Our Creative Director, Neha Suhjani, has solid observations on her pupil, ‘Saanvi is sharp and her performances are always graceful. She is someone who takes any challenge head on. She is relentless and rests only when she’s mastered the choreography. I am really happy that she has been chosen to perform at the CSTD concert in Singapore in September 2019. She is going to be performing a solo variation from Esmerelda. The choreography is amongst the toughest, but this has unsurprisingly been a motivating factor for Saanvi, given her quest for perfection.”