Kottayi

Kottayi is a village in Palakkad district best known as the birthplace of Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, one of the great voices of twentieth-century Carnatic music. Keralam Tourism notes that the village continues to honour his memory through the annual Chembai Parthasarathy Ekadasi Music Festival, generally held in February or March, when established musicians gather for concerts. The settlement is also associated with traditional Tamil Brahmin homes and an older cultural landscape that gives visitors a sense of the environment in which Chembai's musical life began.

For music enthusiasts, Kottayi is less about a single monument and more about place, memory and continuing performance tradition. It can be visited as part of a cultural circuit through Palakkad's villages, especially for travellers interested in Carnatic music, temple culture and the personalities who shaped Keralam's modern artistic history.