India's Greatest Singer, the prestigeous 1974 Ramon Magasaysay Awaardee, Bharath Ratna , Madhurai Subramanija Iyer. Subbulakshmi also Known as MS is regarded as the premier classical vocalist of her generation .She was also called the “ Nightingale of India “.

MS, the carnatic singer of Tamilnadu grabbed the hearts of music lovers in India and abroad . Her life and music remained the purest form of worship. Her mesmerising voice when listened to the great verses of venkatesa suprabhatham , “Kausalya Supraya Rama Poorva Sandhya Parvarthathey ------“. Would leave us spell bound .

M.S.Subbulakshmi was born on September 16, 1916 in the city of Madhurai in South India . Her Parents were Subramanya Iyer , a lawayer and Veena Vidushi Shanmunkavadivu , a renowned singer and player of the Veena . Her younger brother , Sakthivel played the mridangam and her sister , Vadivambal became a Singer . Her Grandmother Akkammal was a violinist. Hence was blessed by being born into a home where music was valued and grew up surrounded and filled by music. MS was affectionately known as Kunjamma, accompanied her mother at concerts by the age of 10 .Her mother gave a formal training in vocal music and as a young girl she studied under Srinivasa Iyengar of Madhurai who taught her up to the Varnam stage. In the later years She had the good fortune of learning from several great musicians and among them were Musuri Subrahmanya Iyer and semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer. Her formal schooling was stopped in the 5 th grade.

From her teens she gave concerts on her own including the major performances at the madras music academy, the prestigious center for the study and promotion of carnatic music. Later she became the first woman to be the chairperson of the music academy. MS' music is replete with the feeling of bhakthi, a complete surrender to devotion of god. Apart from the undesirable beautiful voice and charming looks, she has obvious earnestness about music.

At the age of 24, she married thyagarajan sadasivam who gave artistic shape and definition to her ideas of music which ran wild. He was a film director, publisher and managing director of “kalki”, the widely circulated tamil weekly.

In 1944 she participated in the All-india dance conference in Bombay, her performance created a sensation. She played a title- role of a singer saint, Meera in a hindi language film produced by her husband. These two events brought fame to subbulakshmi in to national prominence. Subbulakshmi, with her husband visted Mahatma Gandhi and delighted him by singing his favourite bhajans. Jawaharlal Nehru referred to her as “THE QUEEN OF SONG”.

Using of her voice to raise money for good causes endeared MS to her countrymen. She gave more than 200 benefit performances for various Indian charities. In recognition of her efforts subbulakshmi received the Padma Bhushan from the government of India in 1955, the first musician to be so honored. In 1956, she received the presidents National Award for classical karnatic music. In 1963, she was invited to participate in Edinburgh festival in Europe. She made a number of recordings for the BBC. In 1966 she flew to US to sing as her country's representative at the United Nations.

Subbulakshmi advocated the compulsory teaching of music at all levels of education, from primary through University. Subba lakshmi herself said that “if one sings with sincerity and devotion, such music has the capacity to move the audience to divine experience, irrespective of their religious beliefs, their language and the countries to which they may belong”.

Not unexpectedly, “she talks,sings and lives music 24 hours a day”, and is deeply religious. Sitting on stage, diamonds glittering on her nose and ear, jasmines in her hair-her grace and beauty enchanted, Madhurai subramanijaiya subbulakshmi is indeed a great legend, a woman with no regents.

In India her status is unassailable and any future contender for her crown will have to be special indeed. Her music is unique in that it has universal appeal.

The Vijayanagar Empire caused a number of monuments to be built and patronized in the State of Andhra Pradesh. The ornate Lepakshi temples being one of the popular temples of that era. Lepakshi is a small village, which lies nine miles east of Hindupur in Anantapur District of Andhra and is famous for its temple of Veerabhadra, and is also a renowned place where the best specimens of the mural paintings of the Vijayanagar kings are available.

It is said that when Lord Rama went in search of Sita, he came across the fallen bird Jatayu here and he commanded the bird to rise: 'Le Pakshi,' which over time, evolved to Lepakshi.

The beautiful sculptures on the prakaram attract the pilgrims' attention. These include 14 forms of Siva,like Dakshinamurthi, Ardhanareeswara, and Tripurantaka etc. The hall of creepers is another excellent work of art, which has provided perennial inspiration to textile designers over the years. About 500m, North-East of the temple stands India's largest monolithic Nandhi, measuring about 8.25m long and 4.60m high.

An unemployed biologist was starving and could not find a job.

After weeks of searching, he finally gets an interview at a local zoo.

The zookeeper tells him that the only job available is to dress up in a gorilla's suit and pretend to be gorilla so people will keep coming to the zoo.

On his first day on the job, the biologist puts on the outfit and goes into the cage.

The people all cheer to see him.

After a while, he starts really putting on a show, jumping around, beating his chest and roaring.

During one acrobatic attempt, though, he loses his balance and crashes through same safety melting, loading square in the middle of the lion cage!

As he lies there stunned, the lion rushes toward him, roaring and snarling.

The poor biologist is terrified and starts screaming, “Help, help….. some one help me”!!.

The lion races over to him, knocks him to the ground, and quietly whispers, “Hey its me sam, from your mammal class, shut up or we will both lose our jobs”!!.