Yes, what Karaikudi said was right!

What a beautiful start for my day by listening to an alapana of Raga Kalyani by M.S.Subbulakshmi!
Once a journalist asked about her first public appearance. She replied: "When it happened, I felt only annoyance at being yanked from my favourite game - making mud pies. Someone picked me up, dusted my hands and skirt, carried me to the nearby Sethupati School where my mother was playing before 50 to 100 people. In those days that was the usual concert attendance. At mother's bidding I sang a couple of songs. I was too young for the smiles and the claps to mean much. I was thinking more of returning to the mud" As per records, her debut concert in Madras music academy was when she was 17 in 1934. Her mother only played Tanpura. After the concert, Karaikudi Sambasiva Iyer, stalwart Veena maestro said 'Child, you carry a veena in your throat'. http://www.muzigle.com/artist/ms-subbulakshmi/albums#!track/birana-brovaite