compaChennai is a predominantly Tamil city, the main language spoken in the city is Tamil. Tamil is one of the Dravidian languages. If the Aryan influence dominates in the half of India, the Dravidian influence plays a major role in the southern half of the nation.
One aspect that has become synonymous with the culture of Chennai is the traditional Bharat Natyam Dance. The other South Indian classical dances are very popular, and it is a tradition that girls are taught either classical dancing or classical singing.
The Madras Music Academy organizes an annual music festival. The festival called the 'Music Season,' is held for a period of five weeks, every year. The main highlight of this music festival is Carnatic music. This is traditional South Indian Classical music.
One of the major proponents of this music form was the famous M.S. Subbulakshmi. This marvelous exponent of Carnatic music passed away in the year 2004. She was the first singer to receive the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honor in India. She hailed from the town of Madurai.
Though her mother tongue was Tamil M.S. Subbulakshmi sang in a number of Indian languages like Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, and Marathi. She was, also, a film actress.
The Bharat Natyam dance is famous all over India, The cultural center Kalashetra, is located on the breach, and is and important center for the exponents of this dance form.
The film studios located at Kodambakkam, are one of the most prolific in India. Major film stars include the likes of Rajnikant, Kamal Hasan, and Surya. Rajnikant's latest film 'Shivaji,' was a major blockbuster not just in the south, but in the whole of India! Surya's 'Ghajini' is being made into a Hindi film, such was the immense popularity of the film!
Pongal is the main festival in Tamil Nadu, it is actually a harvest festival. The Tamil New Year is, usually, celebrated on April 14. This is almost the same time as the Bengali New Year. The other festivals like Diwali, Id, and Christmas, are also celebrated with a lot of pomp. The culture of Chennai is a mixture of different cultures, gleaned from the people who have settled in this region, over the ages.
The culture of Chennai, cannot be complete without the cuisines of this region, these include rice and lentil based dishes like idli, vada, utthapam, dosas, sambar, pongal, and curd-rice, to name some of the popular dishes. The tamaring based non-vegetarian dishes,are also very popular.
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