Every winter, as the clammy air turns into a wispy breeze, Chennai, a city often troubled by the torrent of change, loses itself in the comfort of an 80-year-old tradition. In music halls (sabhas) scattered across the city, techies from Silicon Valley and maamis in glittering temple jewellery, settle down in chairs. The chatter subsides, all eyes turn to the stage—and in the touch of the bow on the strings of a violin, the silence scatters. The concert begins. This is the city’s famous kutcheri festival, held from December 15 to January 15, the margazhi month in the Tamil calendar, the only celebration of classical music and dance in the country, apart from Kolkata’s Dover Lane Music Conference, where music-lovers outnumber the tickets on offer.

Thirty-nine-year-old S. Sridharan, a software professional from Sydney, got hooked to the magic when he was 12. He left for Australia six years ago but every December, he flies down from Australia, carrying his mridangam, to the city of his birth where he grew up learning raagas and thalas. When he is not performing, Sridharan, who works for retailer giant Harvey Norman, wears cool shorts, hops from one programme hall to another, attending not less than 50 concerts in the season, drinking filter coffee and munching on seedai and murukku.

At the halls, in the crowd of uncles in cotton veshtis, clutching worn diaries in which they jot down the name of a song and its raaga, you can find more hip techies like Sridharan who return home at this time from all corners of the world. With their camcorders and laptops, they bring with them the talent and interest that keeps the sabha season buzzing with life. “It is the frenzy that is most enthralling. We go from one sabha to another, discuss and talk after every performance, catch up at a sabha canteen, debate on the quality of performances and exclaim over the ones we missed. This is what we come back for every year,’’ says Sridharan, who will fly back after attending the last concert of the season.

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