December is definitely the best time to be in Chennai. Puddle offsprings of rain mother in potholes begin disappearing ,barring for few murkier remains .The air is cool atlast, fog capping the sky in the early morning, tempting even the early birds to remain 'bliss'ed in the bed for some more time.

And then there is music in the air, literally.

The Tamil month of Margazhi begins around mid December ,setting way for the Margazhi maha utsavam – the festival of music and dance that is now being recognized as one of the largest cultural events . Originally started by the Music academy eight decades ago, the event has evolved as a season of performance and appreciation of rich art forms of music , dance and drama too, featuring a wide range of performances from a plethora of professional artists - masters and novices alike. The season offers Carnatic music lovers alone an overwhelming and delectable choice of music to select.

The very beginning of Margazhi for me is commemorated by music. The priest of the Shiva Vishnu temple in my locality, always makes it a point to wake us up listening to the Thirrupavai rendition in the temple's sound system. Me being the persistent slumberer, usually rise an hour later while it’s close to an end. The mind is then groggy having bade a reluctant bye to the seven hour intensely pleasing dark and warm journey and the sound system just being a blaring loud speaker plays an already worn-out tape , but it never stopped me from being delighted by the clean and timeless rendition of that composition by MLV.

Numerous music sabhas across the city celebrate the Margazhi music festival. It’s usually destination TTK road , where the Music academy and Narada Gana sabha are situated or it’s Mylapore. My grandfather accompanies me usually , his choice usually being the Music academy or Narada Gana sabha of TTK road, mainly because the acoustics in these halls remain far superior than any other music halls in Chennai till date.

There are a number of other music forums that usually rent space of other sabhas or marriage halls to conduct their Kutcheries, result being the sound quality being greatly compromised.

Our preferred choice of initial Kutcheri are those free concerts in afternoon, performed usually by newbie musicians . The evening concerts are ticketed and are performed by the more prominent ones. If it’s a leading artist, most of the times tickets would be sold out in the morning itself . But the persistent ones are allowed to be seated cross legged closer to the dais, close to the performing party. Once in a Jesudas’s concert I was ‘given the dais’, among fifty others.I felt delighted sitting so near to the great man, but couldn't hear a thing clearly as the dais lacked a feedback amplifier.

A kutchery is followed duly by a visit to the Sabha canteen to sample hot Bondas and Halwas and the inevitable thick filter kapi. Every sabha, big and small has its own food catering service , a contract for the music season. The weeklies here sometimes jokingly observe that a crowd in a particular sabha could be mostly attributed to the taste of the dishes served out by the sabha canteen., which has become quite actually a fact. Food catering has become to add its own quintessential flavour to the music season itself.

Apart from music, there are also lecture demonstrations where it could be talking about one of the various aspects of music. Instrumentalists, especially percussionists also participate regularly in these lec dems which turn out to be profusely interesting than a regular concert itself.

Music season brings about a crop of talented artists every year here. Also senior artists are conferred upon awards and titles every year by the sabhas here, with the most prestigious being ‘Sangita Kalanidhi’ , that is awarded by the Music academy here.

While observing that the December Music festival keeps getting better every year, it should also be realized that like any other art, classical music face the risk of losing its cultural ethos in modern day pursuits. There are sadly being many traditions here that are being pursued merely out of a guilt conscience or worse, as a style statement.Yet the changing times also indicate healthy symptoms of exposure and awareness,as is justified by the reverse cultural imperialism Carnatic music sometimes extends to the west and with good media exposure and with lot of opinion pieces on the world wide web,the modern day rasika is well informed, which in itself is a health challenge.