A little girl with shy eyes and a charming smile, Harshhitha is excited about turning eight this September. She is very cute, but then so are a lot of other children. What makes her extraordinary? Well, for starters, she is barely seven and has already acted in four Kannada serials, with talks on to even cast her in a film. She has acted in serials such as Manedevru , Atmakathe , Crime Files and Panchamaveda .
She began acting at five, and the very mention of acting lights up her jet-black eyes. “Acting is a lot of fun,” she says. She got her break on television in Manedevru that was telecast on Udaya TVand it remains her favourite till date. Her performances were highly appreciated by the audiences as well as her director, she proudly recounts. She has not forgotten her first stepping stone, even as she has progressed to other serials. When asked if she remembered any of her old dialogues, she shyly replied, “I remember all from Manedevru .”
Harshhitha is currently working in Panchamaveda . She usually goes to the set after school hours and the shooting often goes on till about midnight. But the hardworking little girl is not complaining. “I love being the youngest one on the set... I am pampered by everyone,” she grins.
She is the first in her family to take to acting and here parents are proud of her. Her mother, Usha, took her to her first audition and both of them haven’t looked back ever since. “I was very scared for her first audition. But she acted effortlessly and bagged the role,” she recalls.
“We allow her to choose what she wants to do. We cannot promise her a lot of resources but she certainly has our support and encouragement,” says her father, Umesh G.C., a head constable. She has not received any formal training for acting yet but her parents, gauging her interest, are planning to send her to an acting school soon.
What has changed in their lives since Harshhitha started acting? Her mother responds: “My daughter is still the same. The only difference is that now people recognise her on the streets or in the shops.”
The little girl is fond of a number of other things out of which Maggi and ice-cream top her list. She loves the world of science, not for its wonders but for its diagrams. She loves drawing too.
Does she want to become an artist or scientist if acting doesn’t work out? She shakes her head. As much she likes science and drawing, acting is where her heart and soul lie. The world of “lights, camera, action” is where she wants to be.
Her favourite actors are Darshan and Shah Rukh Khan, and she dreams of working with them someday. My, she has certainly got ‘stars in her eyes’.
