The Chembai House in Palakkad continues to be a place of laughter and music just as its founder Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar meant it to be

A chorus of kirthanas guides you to Chembai House, the 125-year-old agraharam. Inside, a group of students sing Hindolam. The Saturday music class is in progress. Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar surveys the class from a black and white photograph on a dusty wall.

On a regular weekend, Chembai House in Kottai in Palakkad, bustles with tourists, musicians and scholars. Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar’s grandson, Chembai Suresh says, “There is not a single day when a tourist does not knock our doors.”

In the courtyard, Janaki amma, the 74-year-old daughter-in-law , is drying rice vadams in the hot sun. The house is almost just the same as it was when she came here at the age of 13, she recalls. “It would echo with music day and night. Irrespective of cast and community, everyone was welcome in Chembai’s class.”

This house was specially built for a gurukula. There are four to five rooms where the students slept. Yesudas, Jayan and Vijayan and Kesavan Namboodiri were disciples of the bhagavathar. “Initially, Chembai and his brother Subramania Bhagavathar (Chuppamani Bhagavathar) used to perform together on one stage. Later, when Chembai got busy with concerts in Chennai, Subramania stayed back to manage the classes here,” Suresh recalls. However, Subramania Bhagavathar’s health deteriorated and the gurukula had to wind up.

But the classes continued, even after the brothers passed away. Around 400 students come here every Saturday and Sunday to learn music. Just opposite the agraham, is a hall that accommodates more students. Some of the teachers are professionally trained graduates from music colleges. “The fee is just Rs.100 per month. A few under-privileged students also get a chance to study for free,” says Suresh. “Most of them know Chembai as the guru of Yesudas. But I wonder how many have heard my grandfather sing.”

Yesudas also built a mandapam for his guru. It houses a huge golden sculpture of Chembai and is constructed in the shape of a tambura.

Yesudas is a regular visitor here as every year he sings for Chembai Ekadasi Music Festival, a tradition begun by Chembai himself. During the festival the Chembai lane throngs with an ocean of people, says Suresh. “A make shift stage is put up in front of the house, facing the village. And the audience sits on the ground.” M.S. Subbulakshmi, M. Balamuralikrishna, M.D. Ramanathan, Maharajapuram Santhanam and Ganesh & Kumaresh have all sung on this stage. “All of them come here not for the money, but the ambience. Dasettan says singing here is a yearly “battery recharge” for him. Singer Unnikrishnan said once that he can feel vibrations here.”

That’s why the family wants to preserve the house and its ambience. All of Chembai’s belongings, including his tambura, favourite reclining chair and the wooden swing on which he sat and read the Narayaneeyam, have been preserved. Black and white photographs of the musicians with his disciples, contemporaries such as Pandit Ravi Shankar and celebrities such as Shivaji Ganeshan still adorn the walls. However, Suresh has also noticed the discoloured wall paints and the cockroaches that scuttle around the pooja room. “I want to renovate the house. But we do not wish to turn this into a public property. This is primarily a personal space. Let it stay as it is.”

As morning gives way to afternoon, the Kottai village dozes off. But the Chembai family doesn’t. More visitors arrive. Suresh rushes out to guide them around the house. Meanwhile, a file of children for the next class troops in. One of them settles down on an arm of Chembai’s reclining chair.

The house looks crowded, happy and busy. Just the way its owner wanted it to be.