A large number of sishyas of Neyveli Santhanagopalan's put together a grand celebration in Chennai this past week to mark the 25 years of what was billed as 'Sangeetha Gnana Dhanam' of Neyveli Santhanagopalan's gurukulam.

The felicitation was held at PSBB School, K K Nagar on November 21 and 22 and was compered by scholar, Dr Va Ve Su.

Music stalwarts and eminent personalities - Dr. T K Murthy, Ganesa Sharma, Vedantham, G A Nair, Thiruvarur Bhakthavathsalam, Prof T R Subramaniam, 'Cleveland' Sundaram and Narasimhan of Thiruvanmiyur Asthika Samajam attended the event.

Many other artistes spoke on this occasion - Jayalakshmi Santhanam, Saranathan, Gayathri Venkatraghavan, Sriram Parasuram....many sabha representatives offered their felicitations too.

His senior disciples, daughter Sriranjani, Ajay Nambudiri, Sriram Parthasarathy, Chinmaya Sisters, Delhi Brothers, Gokul Chandramouli, Janani, Hemamalini, Sunil, Srikanth Koundinya, Uma Money, Muthukrishnan, Jaykrishnan and Ravindra Bhat presented concerts.

Santhanagopalan said he was delighted to see them perform and that his sishyas are always special.

Sriram Parthasarathy, a senior sishya, got emotional when he spoke while representing the sishya group. "Sir needs to take care of his health - we are gifting him a treadmill for Rs.25,000. We cannot forget the days of our gurukulavasam; he taught us hours together, and his wife Meera Santhanagopalan used to send out plates and plates of food to the sishyas. I did not pay a rupee to him. Nowhere in the world, you can find such a wonderful guru . . . we are very fortunate", he said.

There was also an announcement made by his sishyas abroad that a similar event would be held in June 2010, in USA.