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Captivating recital by Harinie Jeevitha July 4, 2015   Harinie Jeevitha kept the audience spellbound for about 90 minutes under the HCL series of the Music Academy, Chennai on 23rd June. A highly promising disciple of Sheela Unnikrishnan of the Mellattur bani, Harinie has had national and international exposure. She commenced the recital with Mallari in mishra dhruva talam which at once demonstrated her prowess in nritta. The following piece was shabdam on Lord Nataraja in Ragamalika of Tanjore Quartet which is invariably set to mishra chapu where Harinie did ample justice.   The piece-de-resistance was the varnam in Dhanyasi, Nee inda mayam by Papanasam Sivan which gave ample scope to Harinie in both nritta and nritya sections with symmetrical jathis by her guru and the melkala jathi at the commencement of the charanam, “Aayar kula deepame arulthaaraay” which drew a long applause from the audience. The impeccable nritta for all the jathis by Harinie and her abhinaya captured the attention of the audience including critics and connoisseurs. Shyama Sastri’s “Shankara shankuru Chandramukhi akhilandeswari shambhavi sarasija bhava vandithe gouri” was replete with bhakthi rasa in Saveri, tisra nadai. The padam section was very interesting with a highly romantic piece of Kshetrayya, “Evvade vaadu”, where the heroine says, “when I was sleeping, someone pretending to be close to me came near me and under the pretext of whispering some message into my ears, kissed me on my lips” which reminded in some measure the lines “malaiyitavan pol vayil mutham ittandi” in Thaye Yashoda of Oothukadu Venkata Kavi. Harinie was sensuous when she conveyed nritya for “nenu pavalinchina vela”. She concluded the recital with a brisk tillana in Bhupalam of Swathi Tirunal on Lord Padmanabha quite in contrast to the oft repeated Dhanashree tillana. Sheela Unnikrishnan wielded the cymbals with effective vocal support by Thyagarajan, Guru  Bharadwaj on the percussion, Ananthanarayanan on veena and Devarajan on flute, who all contributed to the richness of the recital. If Harinie continues this trend, she will go places in the years to come.