M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar - Early Life

Early Life

Bhagavathar was born "Thyagaraja" in Mayiladuthurai (then known as Mayavaram), Tanjore District on March 1, 1901. He was the eldest son of Krishnamurthy achary a goldsmith. A few years after his birth, the family moved to Tiruchirappalli (then known as Trichinopoly), where Thyagaraja was admitted in a local school.

Right from his boyhood, Thyagaraja neglected his studies. Instead, he desired to become a singer. According to a popular anecdote, Thyagaraja once ran away from home after being reprimanded by his father for his decision to become a singer as singing was not considered to be an honourable profession in the conservative Indian society of the early 20th century. Krishnamurthy Achari, eventually, found his son in the Telugu-speaking town of Cuddapah as he was singing to a large group of admiring listeners. Krishnamurthy achary relented and encouraged his son to hone his skills. Soon, Thyagaraja began to sing Hindu religious songs or bhajans.

Read more about this topic:  M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.
    C. John Sommerville (20th century)

    Surely among a rich man’s flowering lawns,
    Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
    Life overflows without ambitious pains;
    And rains down life until the basin spills,
    And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
    As though to choose whatever shape it wills....
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)