Kum. Suchithra Balasubramanian (Harikatha)
Kum. Apoorva Krishna (Violin)
Sri. Ethirajan Ramanujam (Mridangam)
Topic: Vatsala Kalyanam
Waetjen Auditorium, CSU, Cleveland, OH, USA
2013, April 7th, 0915-1100
Kum. Suchithra is an artiste I've only heard of through YouTube, and I don't have much Harikatha exposure. I'd also never heard of Vatsala, so I was intrigued. It turns out Vatsala appears as a character in a Mahabharata-based Upakatha popular in Andhra Pradesh. In that story, she's the daughter of Balarama, whom both Abhimanyu and Duryodhana's son Lakshana vie to marry. You can find the story on Wikipedia, so I'll skip ahead.
Suchithra spoke in the Brahmin-sociolect of Tamil from years past; I was tickled pink to hear that from the mouth of a 20-something :-) She went over the story in detail, and peppered her narrative with songs in Marathi and Tamil. The Tamil ones were from various Srivaishnava devotees - Azhvars and later Acharyas. The Marathi ones I imagine are traditional Harikatha pieces. Her manodharma sketches were to the point and correct. Suchithra's got stage presence, a great delivery style and copious knowledge of Hindu mythos. Her accompaniments also did a fine job, always on the lookout for cues from her on when to start and stop playing.
The one fly in the ointment was her tendency to be make judgemental remarks in the middle of her narration. The remarks about aspects of modern life were sometimes deprecatory, but sometimes caustic. Hope this doesn't become a major problem in her future expositions.