VISAKHAPATNAM: Harikatha is an amalgam of music, drama and discourse. Besides being proficient in all these arts, a Harikatha artiste has to be conversant with vast corpus of scriptures and narrate the stories with ready wit and humour. Well-equipped with all these aspects, Ongole-based Bhagavatarini Vedavati regaled the audience through her gripping presentation of the ‘Narthanasala’ in Harikatha form at Kalabharati Visakhapatnam recently.
Drawing from the epic Mahabharata where Pandavas, as per the conditions agreed upon losing in the game of dice; stay incognito in Matsya kingdom for a year.Yudhistara disguises himself as Kankubhattu, Draupadi as Sairandhri in the service of queen Sudheshna. Arjuna as a eunuch who joins as dance instructor. Bhima becomes a chef, Nakula and Sahadeva take up the roles of caretakers of cows and horses. The dance hall or
Vedavati She seemed well versed in Carnatic classical music and excelled in her exposition of the chosen compositions in an array of ragas. Be it raga Sivaranjani, Todi or Kalyani or Shanmukhapriya, it was full of classicism. The way she combined the emotive substance of the narrative with subtle and appealing shades of those ragas ensured she drove the point straight home. She has a flair for expression and her histrionic talent came to fore in delineating the emotional contours of the characters being related and her knowledge of classical dance movements evidently pepped up her presentation. Punctuated with melodic songs and erudite verses and above all chuckle-inducing one-liners, her robust presentation drew loud applause. Endowed with a clear vocal culture that could reach the last row without a microphone, she related the narrative in a coherent and comprehensive manner. She has a keen sense of the rasa bhava of the scene at hand and in perfect combination of appropriate abhinaya with riveting musical presentation; she excelled as an ace Bhagavatarini. Though the mythological tale is well-known, it was ‘how’ rather than ‘what’ she narrated that stood out.
Vedavati’s musical account found able response from B Yejnanarayana on keyboard and Eswara Swaroop on tabla. Visakha Music and Dance Academy hosted it.
