If, one of these days, I lay my hands on a time machine, I will (before dropping in at one of Ghalib's mehfil's) take the opportunity to go and fall at the lotus feet of the great Saint Tyagaraja. And this is no general romantic, poetic stuff that I am saying. I am dead serious:-)

S**t! Wonder how it felt. To write your own lyrics. Set them to your own music. And then SING them yourself. By God. And here I am, I can't even do one of these things.

And the beauty of the whole thing is if someone sings Tyagaraja's songs today they probably sound very much the same as when he first sang them, since he wrote down the exact music also. ( Unlike Urdu poetry by Ghalib, say, which is set to n different tunes (that doesnt take anything away from it though)).

By the way lots of carnatic mp3s are downloadable at:

http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/Homepages/shivkuma/personal/music/

If you want to start to listen to carnatic music you might perhaps try out
"kanakana ruchira" or "Jagadanada Karaka" or "Endarao Mahanubhavulu". These are the most popular creations of the most popular Carnatic composer- Sri Tyagaraja. The lyrics are also available, with meanings. I would strongly recommend that you went through them, as well.