Let's begin in the beginning...Raga Naatai

As a tradition (perhaps established in the 20th century), most carnatic concerts start off with a kriti (song) in the praise of Lord Vinayaka (Ganapathi) usually set in Raga Naatai or Raga Hamsadhwani (which we will cover in a different post).

Here is a song "Mahaganapathim" from the '80s movie Sindhubhairavi set in Raga Naatai sung by K.J.Yesudas.

There is a more recent version of the same song in the Hindi movie Morning Raga (it isn't often one gets to see Shabana Azmi acting as a conventional south indian maami and convincingly too)

Here is the film song "Narumugaiyae" from a more recent Tamil movie (Iruvar) loosely based on Raga Naatai sung very nicely by the carnatic singers P.Unnikrishnan and Bombay Jayashree.

Yet another one "Thanga Magan" from a recent Rajinikanth movie. Interestingly, this song starts off with a phrase from the famous Western Classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach before nicely melding into Naatai.

A more recent song "Iyengaru Veetu Azhage" from the movie Anniyan is also based on Raga Naatai: