The Music Messiah in itunes

Great news! Ilaiyaraaja's "The Music Messiah" is available on apple's itunes. Also, pretty soon, you will be able to buy the CD by placing an order at agi music. Check out this link for details.
This photograph was taken in 2005 in Chennai, India.

Ilaiyaraaja and I

By a strange coincidence the Maestro and my father were both born the same year. The coincidence does not stop there – the same year that I was born, Ilaiyaraaja made his debut in Tamil cinema! One does not need these coincidences to feel a deep connection with the compositions of this genius. Ilaiyaraaja has the capability to enrich one's life not by enslaving you to his great work, but by opening the doors to a whole wide range of music.

When I was a child I was under the mistaken impression that all “new songs” were “bad”. That impression was because my parents would listen only to Thyagaraja Bhagavadhar, Seerkazhi Govindarajan, and other songs of yesteryears. Although I developed a taste for those classics (albeit reluctantly), I could not deny the immense pleasure I derived from the compositions of Isaignani. At that time I did not even know that there was such a composer named Ilaiyaraaja. I would just hear his songs wafting from the radios in the neighboring houses and I would sit listening to them mesmerized by the depth of feeling and melody in the tune.

As I got older and started asserting my independent taste in music, I started collecting Echo cassette compilations. Nothing was dearer to me than those pink cassettes stacked up on my shelf. I would play them for hours on end. I would lie on the couch and arrange the speakers on either side of my head and listen to the intricacies of the doyen’s compositions. Invariably I stumbled upon “How to name it?” and “Nothing but Wind” – the albums that widened my horizon to appreciate the beauty of classical music. Through these albums I understood why Ilaiyaraaja welcomes Thyagaraja, loves Mozart and has his talk with Bach….and a whole new fascination with classical music began. This is what I mean by Ilaiyaraaja opening the doors to a wide range of music. In my opinion, a good composer should whet your appetite for great music – I am greatly indebted to Ilaiyaraaja for doing just that for me and probably millions of his fans.


I had always wanted to see Ilaiyaraaja in person. Imagine my surprise and great joy when a contact I got through a friend told me that I could do that when Raja comes to felicitate MSV and Ramamurthy at Kamarajar arangam in Chennai! It has been my dream to paint some portraits of Raja and I was not going to pass up this opportunity to shoot my own reference photos of the maestro. I promptly bought tickets to the function. I was fortunate enough to take several close-up photographs of the composer. I have used two of those for the sketches displayed here. I am not going to go into details of the function, suffice it to say that it was one heady experience for me to see him, hear him speak and break into a short spontaneous song.

During the recent live concert in Chennai, when the M.C praised Ilaiyaraaja to the skies, in all modesty the composer had replied, “.....apdi ellaam onnum illa, isai kadalil alai pola, alaiyil nurai pola, nuraiyil thuzhi pola, vandhuttu pora thuzhi naan” (.......nothing like that, I am just a speck of dust afloat the froth on a wave in the ocean of Music). That may be true according to him, but that speck is what enhances the beauty of the mighty ocean for me.