We took our guests to the village of Thiruvaiyaru, known around the Indian music world as the place where the great Carnatic music composer Thyagaraja lived and attained samadhi and where every year, artistes gather to pay tribute at this samadhi at an annual aradhana.
Thiruvaiyaru is about 14 mms from Thanjavur and because of the newly-laid highways close to it, has also got its main road relaid, so access is easy.
Thyagaraja's samadhi is a very quiet place when you visit it now. It sits by itself on a swathe of river sand which is where the pandal is erected at aradhana time - for people to listen to concerts held on two small stages built facing the samadhi.
Workers were busy putting back the simple boundary fences of metal when we got here.
Surprise of surprises, the Cauvery river that runs alongside the samadhi zone was holding water ( the photo above) . Water that must have been some 4 to 5 feet deep and spread over half a kilometer.
"How did this water hold when the monsoon rains have been limited last year?", we asked the men around.
They pointed to a check dam built some 200 mts away on the river bed. It was this dam structure that had helped store the water since late last year and now helped irrigate some 300 acres of fields - paddy and sugar-cane mostly.
The river with water made for a great sight.
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