Sundaravalli Ammal was a simple homemaker who was not formally trained in music or literature. Because of divine blessings, she composed songs on the deities she visited and wrote them in a notebook. Sundaravalli Ammal was born in 1906 in Kuzhumani village in the Tiruchirapally district. After her marriage to K.Rajam Iyengar, a school teacher at the age of fourteen, they lived in Srivilliputtur, Vellore, Srirangam, Nellore, Madurai and Coimbatore. She managed her family of six children with the income of her husband as a school teacher. Besides her household chores, she found time and inspiration to pen her outpourings which came to her spontaneously only because of her divinity and simplicity. The songs are in Tamil praise the glory of the various Gods and are written with utmost simplicity. The songs were written in a notebook, which her grandchildren have since located, and they decided to publish and popularise them.

In some songs, she has indicated the name of the raga, but most of them do not contain any indication of any specific raga or tala. She breathed her last in 1980. The compositions of Sundaravalli Ammal deserve our patronage and publicity.

The family members of the late composer published the book titled Kaanaadha Kovilkal - Kelaadha Geethankal in the year 1991, containing some of her compositions. As a sequel to that, another ten songs have been tuned and notated by mridanga vidwan Arun Prakash in the most appealing ragas. The family released the book on 29 August 2021, handing over the first copy to celebrated musician P.Unnikrishnan. The book contains the sahithyam in Tamil and English and notations in English to learn these compositions and present them in concerts. After the book release, the songs were presented to a live audience with a team of musicians led by Arun Prakash.

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