'In the meantime, I manage to inject them with serious ragas like Amritavarshini and Abhogi that they otherwise wouldn't have sat through,' Sairam said with a laugh.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Sairam initially trained under her mother, Carnatic vocalist Rajalakshmi Sethuraman; and then guru T. Brinda for 14 years from the age of 10 to 24.

She performed on stage for the first time as a 12-year-old and went abroad at 30 to Germany for three months 'to teach in a university and perform'.

'I realised in Germany that Europeans had no idea about the existence of Carnatic vocal music. I was stunned and resolved to change things. I confronted the director and asked him why westerners did not know anything about Carnatic music, when we knew their music,' she said.

Since then, there has been no looking back for Sairam. 'I have been all over Europe and the US,' she said.

Sairam can sing in many Indian languages. 'In the coming Delhi International Arts Festival in October, I plan to sing devotional songs in every major Indian language -- southern languages, Oriya, Gujarati, Marathi, Braj bhasa and Bengali -- to take listeners on a sacred musical journey through the country,' she said.

At her performance on Sunday, Sairam impressed the audience with a selection of raga Abhogi, an ancient composition; Amritavarshini, which is known to bring rain to parched lands and a ragam tanam pallavi (a complex exploration of melody) in raga Shanmukhapriya.

But to reach out to the youth in the crowd, she broke it with a peppy rendition of Kadana Kutuham -- a raga of happiness inspired by the British choir bands that played in Chennai churches before Independence.

'I believe in exchange of music -- but not fusion,' said Sairam.