 The story of Nandanar, as Bharati developed it, had considerable resonance with the Nationalist movement in India.Nandanar was an untouchable ("dalit"), and M. K. Gandhi, among others, saw his story as expressing the plight and aspirations of India's "dalit"s. Others argue that Nandanar, with his burning desire to see Shiva at Chidambaram, captured the mood and paralleled the aspirations of Indian nationalists yearning for independence from Britain.Bharati's "kathakalakshepams" were so popular in Karaikal that several government officials would sleep at work after spending the whole night listening to his performances.