Arunagirinaadhar attempts suicide by jumping off a temple tower when Lord Muruga disguised as a Brahmin saves him, shows him the path of devotion and initiates him to compose the Thiruppugazh, an anthology of songs dedicated to Lord Muruga.
The first offering begins with ‘Muthai Tharu.’ This hymn with tongue-twisting lyrics in Tamil is difficult even to read at leisure and TMS created history by recording it in a single ‘take’! Composed in raga Shanmughapriya, the music directors were G. Ramanathan and T.R. Papa who were big names in those days. Soundararajan recalls that the tune was composed by Papa, and before the recording he called on the religious savant Kripananda Variar who translated every word of the song and TMS had rehearsals for an entire day before he recorded it. An amazing performance indeed and, not surprisingly, the song is one of the immortal melodies of Tamil Cinema.
