for many years margazhi has mainly been about carnatic music but now the december music season is beginning to get even more vibrant with margazhiyil makkalisai a festival that offers a platform for folk and street musicians returning for the second yearwith blaring parai beats the second edition of margazhiyil makkalisai 2021 of neelam cultural centre spearheaded by director pa ranjith began in chennai the event which is spread over 10 days across three cities will see the participation of over 700 artistes who will be performing kuralisai gaana oppari and rap along with different types of instruments the festival which aims to take rootedart forms to the people will go on till december 31the support we got from people last year made us continue the fest this year we are confident that it will be successful this season too we are giving a stage to many artistes who dont get the opportunity this year we are focusing on bringing many tribal groups such as todar irular kaanikkar adhiya pazhangudi kudukuduppaikaran etc to the stage we want to identify and bring the artistes who used to perform in the streets to the stage says jk jayakumar a parai musician who also performed yesterdaythe event in chennai started with chief guests music director gv prakash writer aadhavan dheetchanya poet and politician kanimozhi along with pa ranjith playing the parai with the artistes on stagemakkalisai is something about our lifestyle and not something apart from life it talks about our pain and challenges in art form capturing every emotion makkalisai doesnt fail to note that life is a celebration states kanimozhiranjith says our music has international value but we dont see that our forefathers did not even realise that they were artistes we too havent recognised them as such now we need to take the art and artistes to the next stage thats our goalthis year for the first time the event also happened in madurai and coimbatore they are also recording the events and are planning to release them later on a streaming platform in chennai the event will happen for eight days across different sabhas this was the first time we were conducting in other cities apart from chennai so they were openforall events and we had a rousing reception with 3500 people attending in madurai and over 2000 in coimbatore says rapper therukural arivu we are recording the event to identify the arts and the artistes so that we can show this to the world as a documentary of sorts and get them the recognition they deserve adds arivu who will be performing on the final day of the event on new years evethe chennai event had performances by salem adimela parai isai team which had nine artistes dancing to parai beats by other musicians and was followed by karunkuyil ganesan isai kuzhus rendition of folk songs and ended with a performance by popular singers rajalakshmi and senthilkumarkarunguyil ganesan who has been performing for over 30 years