The venue was the new sparkling Wellington School Auditorium in Dubai. In the midst of all the euphoria about the construction of largest shopping malls and tallest buildings in the world, the 500 + audience who had assembled on May 26 evening were privileged to be part of a unique masterpiece of another kind: A brilliant classical Bharatanatyam arangetram performance by a talented, budding youngster from the UAE, Indhu Pathmanathan, which was widely applauded and cheered by the lively audience right through the evening. 

Indhu started dancing at the tender age of five when she was spotted by Lakshmi Venkatesh, a well known Bharatanatyam artiste and teacher from Dubai and for the last six years she has been meticulously practising this divine art with the able guidance and support from her parents and guru.

May 26 was the chosen day for her arangetram and she ably demonstrated her abundant talent in great measure bringing out the finer nuances of synergy of bhava, raga, thala and natyam in a 150-minute effort.

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She started with the traditional Maha Mantras and Guru Vandanam to Mataji Nirmala Devi, founder of Sahaja Yoga, a spiritual form of meditation and stress management which has many dedicated followers in 100+ countries around the globe, including the Gulf.

She followed up with different numbers ranging from the traditional Pushpanjali and Varnam all the way up to the final snake dance with a mix of some classical ragas and folk music.

'Jaya Jaanaki Ramana' of Purandaradasa, a very popular bhajan number, drew a lot of applause as also the Kavadi Chindhu in praise of Lord Muruga. The best piece, of course, was the Thillana set to Revathi Raga which brought out her full talent.

Throughout the performance she maintained a very pleasant smiling posture with excellent hand, eye and feet coordination which would have done even a veteran proud. She had chosen excellent numbers to demonstrate her multiple prowesses in various disciplines of this divine art. She seems to have an excellent future if she is groomed further with the same determination. What was really admirable was the fact that in spite of being away from the Bharatanatyam's home, the cultural capital of India, Chennai, she has still managed to catch up with her peers.

I am sure that she would go a long way in inspiring similar age group children to take up such noble arts and disciplines rather than wasting their precious time in typical Gulf activities like Internet, movies, mobiles, etc.

Her accompaniments on vocal, mridangam, violin and veena were also eminent local artistes who rose up to the occasion. Indhu was felicitated by Asokhan of the Indian Consul General office in Dubai, Madavrao, principal of our Own High School as well as the executive principal of Wellington School.

At the end of the day the happiest person other than her parents must have been her Guru Lakshmi Venkatesh who had put in heart and soul into this arangetram and what better joy for a teacher than to find her own pupil performing to such high standards in trying to emulate the guru herself.