We slow down on our drive to Thiruvaiyaru. The mist is still hanging all around us. The fields are a resplendent green. And the early birds are having their fill in peace. Had we sighted a water pump, we would have given ourselves a nice cold bath. How long has it been since you had a bath at a water pump in a rice field?
The rivers are full too. And the morning bathers are out in full strength.
As we take the bend into Thiruvaiyaru, my cameraman reminds me of the hotel that is known around the world for Asoka halwa.

Our first stop has to be at Thirumanjana Veedhi. A heritage street where saint Thyagaraja once lived. It used to be a mere portion of an old house. Four years ago, when we were at the aradhana we felt ashamed when we visited this house. The furniture was soaked in dust, the grills rusty, cobwebs on the roof.
But few people got emotional about the state of what should be a great memorial.
It was a simple place but when people paid tribute to this composer by singing just there, the music resounded.
The house was demolished and a new memorial of brick and mortar is bring constructed now. And we wonder what this place will look like?
We are a trifle late today; the bhaktas and rasikas who take out an idol of the saint after a brief ceremony, have left early. This is a tradition that is honoured year after year.

Over the years, the aradhana has become more of a mela rather than a memorial concert series. 
One shop offers instant coffee. Another has called its coffee 'Virtual'. LIC competes with Thyrocare while Canara Bank reluctantly offers handbills on its new savings scheme while a neighbour does brisk business selling breakfast.
If you wish to put out four banners, there is a fee. If you wish to hang your banner inside the pandal, there is a fee. If you wish to have the banners at strategic locations inside the pandal, there is a fee.
The people from Western Union are smart. They have their banners at the gate of the saint's samadhi.

The nadaswaram artistes are in greater strength on this day, January 8 (Pushya Bahula Panchami), which marks the day of attaining 'samadhi' of the saint-composer. And as we survey the fast-flowing Cauvery, the notes engulf us gently. Perhaps this is just the space where the nadaswaram sounds so good. The flautists then perform the traditional kriti 'Chetulara' in Bhairavi. Vocalist Gayathri Venkataraghavan climbs on one stage and anchors the show for Doordarshan.
The pandal is packed. Though it is a working day, there at least 3000 rasikas, biding their time for the clock to strike 9 o'clock. Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, the well known violinist, enjoys his role as the MC of this show, and plays it smoothly right in the middle of the pandal where Kadri Gopalnath, Sudha Ragunathan, the Priya Sisters, Anuradha Krishnamurthy Charulatha Mani and dozens of other visiting artistes have squeezed themselves in a row.
And when Vaidyanathan signals, they begin to sing the first of the Pancharatna kritis, some on a loud false note. 

What is the warmest sight of this aradhana?

The effort made by ordinary people to sing the kritis. 
Many sponsors print thousands of booklets with the kritis in them and circulate them widely. Policemen and Home Guards, nadaswaram trainees and electricians, school-kids and hawkers. All of them diligently follow the songs, hum the tune and slowly attempt to sing along. This is a wonderful sight. One which should please the saint wherever he is now.
Thousands of rasikas also make a sincere attempt to forget the self and float into the spiritual.
This is indeed a wonderful atmosphere. 

Every invited artiste gets to perform on one of the two small stages inside the temporary mantap, facing saint Thyagaraja's samadhi. The group is granted about 12 minutes and all through the day, there are a handful of people, willingly listening to them. University students, teenage violinists, up and coming singers. Everybody gets a slot to pay tribute. The big names are listed for the evenings and weekends.
The pandal and the campus overflowed that Sunday, we are told. Sudha Ragunathan and T. M. Krishna were there. And so was K. J. Yesudoss. However, once Yesudoss had finished his concert, the crowd melted.
You have to forgive this audience. 
The aradhana is an event to soak in and have fun for the people of Thiruvaiyaru and around. Girls in their resplendent pavadai-dhavani, teenage boys in faded jeans and sneakers, young women in Conjeevarams and men in white cottons. Some though get drawn by the concerts.

So how sincere are the people who head the organisation which hosts the aradhana about devoting time to core issues? 

Take a look at the memorial to Bangalore Nagarathnammal which stands behind the semi-permanent concert stages. Here is a woman so rare in her time who did so much to sustain the glory and memory of saint Thyagaraja. Yet, the plaques on her memorial are uncared for. The customary pujas though are carried out faithfully.
And you begin to wonder if the aradhana is a showbiz stage for some people.

Babu and Kasim are sweating in the evening light. But the nadaswaram concert draws us all closer. Two other nadaswaram artistes had just finished paying their tributes. Injukudi brothers and Kottur K. N. Veerasamy. Perhaps the 2007 aradhana has been a special for all the nadaswaram artistes, well known and the young? I wish the duo had played all evening as the breeze from the Cauvery envelopes us on the banks.
Next on stage is vocalist Manimaran, and then violinist A. Kanyakumari and her well known sishya Embar Kannan. The mantap is full all over again. The duo started with the beautiful Bindumalini kriti - Enta muddo. And the rasikas give a huge round of applause to the artistes. Ravi Kiran rushes in with his chitra-vina, the case completely plastered with the stickers of the airlines he has flown around the world last year! Cousin P. Ganesh hopes to jam with him. Singer Anuradha Suresh Krishnamurthy comes on stage next. Then follows a concert by T. V. Ramprasad who opens with a rare kriti of Thyagaraja - 'Varasikhi vahana' in the raga Supradeepam.
This has been a nice evening of good music.
But the scores of large floodlights weaken you inside the mantap. What a sight it would be if the artistes performed on a simple lit-up stage in the open air and all of us sat around on the sandy banks of the river and let the music and the river bathe us.

Concerts go on till midnight at the aradhana, a six-day event. I hop across to the on-site post office to collect a few post cards. They will be prized by my friends who are passionate philatelists. The post office has a special cancellation on the aradhana which the staff here will gladly stamp on cards and inland letters if you ask for it. There is a small queue waiting to get into a dining hall where rasikas are served simple food, free. 
We are too tired to partake of the meal. But our cameraman makes sure the driver stops on the main road for the popular Asoka halwa.

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	Video of Pancharathna Kritis concert 2007 aradhana
	A Rough Guide on the Thyagaraja aradhana