 Thus Vaidyanathan and Subrahmaniam imbibed from an early age not only the knowledge of music that their father had but also the tradition of a religious life which had marked the family for generations.When Kaliakudi Natesa Sastry of Tiruvarur, an exponent of the art of Harikatha (musical discourse), came to Chembai village, Anantha Bhagavatar and his family attended the programmes, leading to the boys joining Sastry's troupe.Their concert in Tiruvarur (in Tanjavur district) at a guru pooja festival at which Natesa Sastrigal gave a discourse was especially notable, because it was at this concert that the boys were heard for the first time by Pudukkottai Dakshinamurthy Pillai, a famed exponent of the mridangam and kanjira.