A memorial building constructed in the name of mridangam maestro Palakkad T.S. Mani Iyer, close to his ancestral house at Kalpathy Agraharam in Palakkad town by District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC), will be inaugurated on January 26.
District Collector and Chairman of DTPC, K.V. Mohankumar, said that the building being inaugurated in the centenary year of Palakkad Mani Iyer (as he was popularly known), will house the regional centre of Kerala Folklore Academy.
He said that the building, constructed in 2009, needed some modifications and additional facilities to make it a fitting memorial for the doyen of the mridangam.
Mani Iyer took the mridangam to unprecedented heights and received world-wide appreciation for his style of playing the instrument. His style came to be known as the Mani Iyer bani.
The proposal for constructing a befitting memorial for this great son of Palakkad was in the pipeline for the last three decades – soon after the demise of Mani Iyer in 1981.
The original idea was to conduct the famous Kalpathy Carnatic Music festival in this building.
But even after completing the new building, it would be difficult to host the fete because of the absence of an approach road from the Kalpathy village to the site of the memorial.
Although several logistical problems would have to be addressed before the building becomes functional for the purpose for which it has been built, the inauguration of the memorial in this centenary year of Palakkad Mani Iyer is some solace to music lovers and family members of the mridangam maestro.
