The first lecture of the year was on Vaggeyakara Ramanathapuram ‘Poochi’ Srinivasa Iyengar. He was a disciple of Patnam Subramanya Iyer and a third generation disciple in the lineage of disciples of Saint Tyagaraja. He was a composer of repute and is also credited with have trained many musicians. Dr B M Sundaram gave a special address about Srinivasa Iyengar. He stated that when compared to Hindustani music, Carnatic music gives more importance to lyrics (sahitya) and hence a vaggeyakara gains significance in our system. Among the vaggeyakaras, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar is one who has composed various musical forms like Varnas, Krtis, Javalis and Tillanas. He learnt under Patnam Subramanya Iyer as per the recommendations of Pandithurai Thevar and Bhaskara Sethupathi of the Tanjore royal palace. Dr B.M. Sundaram also spoke in detail about Patnam Subramanya Iyer and Mysore Vasudevachar. He mentioned about the disciples of Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar namely Salem Duraiswamy Iyengar, Madurai Srirangam Iyengar and Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar.
The last surviving disciples of Saint Tyagaraja, Umayalpuram Krishna and Sundara Bhagavatars identified his burial spot with great difficulty and rebuilt it with granite. They conducted aradhana every year till 1910 when unfortunately, the two brothers fell out. Later in 1921, Bangalore Nagarathnamma, the Devadasi, involved herself in the Aradhana. By October 1921, she acquired the samadhi land, built a shrine for Tyagaraja and installed a granite idol of the saint all at her personal expense. As per her will, Nagarathnamma left the entire samadhi land to the Vidyasundari Bangalore Nagarathnamma. Trust and its representatives still perform the abhishekam to the Tyagaraja idol during the aradhana every year. It is with pure devotion towards Tyagaraja that Nagaratnamma carried out all these activities, given the fact that women were not allowed to perform at the aradhana those days.
Dr B M Sundaram traced the details of her birth, early life, training in music and dance. Her talent in composing and command over Sanskrit were highlighted. He also spoke of his association with her and narrated the interesting incident of Dr Balamuralikrishna’s first concert at Tiruvaiyaru where Nagaratnamma took the child in her arms and ran to her room so that no evil eyes were cast on him.
Dr Premeela Gurumurthy shared her memories of Nagaratnamma as told to her by her guru, C Banni Bai, the harikatha stalwart. She also gave a few important references from V Sriram’s book, Devadasi and Saint. She praised Muralidharan for being a pioneer in organising a program in memory of Nagaratnamma, who has done yeoman service to Tyagaraja and the conduct of the aradhana in his memory every year. Audio clippings of two of the padams sung by Nagaratnamma were later played for the audience.