 The little dancer
 Maheetha Bharadwaj, 9 years old (daughter of Dr Mythili Bhardwaj and Chandramouli Bharadwaj of St Louis, Missouri) gave a Bharatanatyam concert January 10 at Raga Sudha Hall, in Mylapore, under the auspices of Naadha
Inbam.
The live orchestra consisted of Adyar K. Lakshman (nattuvaangam), K Rama Rao (vocal), L Baba Prasad (mridangam), and Unnikrishnan (flute). The programme was attended by an invited audience numbering slightly over 100.
 The programme started with todayamangalam which was followed with a brisk raagamaalikaa jatiswaram. The next piece was roopamujooci in tODi raagam (The authorship of this composition is variously attributed to Muttuswami Dikshitrar or his father Ramaswamy
Dikshitar).
It was then followed by a beautiful rendering of Skandha Leelaa (Raagamaalikaa, Adi) in which the six episodes of Lord Murugan's glory were depicted in different emotions.
Maheetha demonstrated simplicity as well as majesticity in striking the different poses -especially with saint poetess auvvaiyaar's encounter with Lord Murugan regarding "cutta pazham" versus "cuDAtha pazham" polemics. The other episodes such as Soorapadma vadham (describing valour), and vaLLit tirumaNam (romance) were also depicted by Maheetha with expressive emotions of valour and endearing moments of love, respectively. While being the piece de resistance, this piece was equally delightful in conveying the sense.
 The next item was Govardhana giridhara (HindoLam, Adi; composer: Narayana Theerthar) wherein Maheetha demonstrated her talent in the abhinaya department. The programme concluded with a thillaanaa (Brindavana saranga, Adi; composer: Madurai N. Krishnan) which once again bore testimony to Maheetha's attention to details.
Maheetha had her Bharatanatyam arangetram in September 2004 in St Louis, USA. Her gurus are Adyar K. Lakshman and Sudha Srinivasan (Chicago). I have had the opportunity to observe Maheetha's development as a young dancer for a couple of years now and the phenomenal progress she achieved in this period was very much evident in her performance. She has come a long way even at this young age. She has still greater heights to scale and I am confident that she will do so and bloom into a wonderful Bharatanatyam dancer with more training and experience.
Dr Sethuraman Subramanian
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
(currently visiting Chennai)
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