‘From Raaja With Love’: Maestro Ilaiyaraaja delivers mesmerizing show in Chennai, despite glitches

FILE: Maestro Isaignani Ilayaraja in conversation with The Hindu about his symphony on January 29, 2025. | Photo credit: Thamodharan B

“I contain multitudes,” wrote Walt Whitman in ‘Song of Myself,’ and I couldn’t help but think of the depth of what that meant Sunday morning. Like me, tens of thousands of Tamil music fans flocked to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai with hearts eager to know the answer to a single question: “What kind of Ilaiyaraaja would we experience today?

Sure, there is only one ‘Isaignani’ Ilaiyaraaja, the corporal hailed as the ‘King of Music’. But if the last 50 years of Tamil music have taught us anything, it’s that Ilaiyaraaja packs a punch. There is Ilaiyaraaja to whom we listen when we miss our mother to hold us; Ilaiyaraaja is forever waiting to soothe a freshly broken heart; there’s one for when we miss the smell of petrichor, one for late-night ruminations, and one for when we’re blown by the breeze from the windows of buses and trains. For example, I even met Ilaiyaraaja who reached out to the darkness in which I was once drowning.

Published – 01 June 2026 20:30 IST