(We urge the reader to read the discussion while simultaneously listening to the song.)

The song is set in D major scale with D,G, A and Bmin chords along with the accidental chords of Cmajor and F#major. Unlike many other film songs, the theme of the song evolves as the song progresses.

The prelude describes how the song comes about. It starts off with a sax tune played by the main hero Prabhu. The heroine Meenakshi - a girl next door - gets lured by this tune and starts humming it. Excited by this response, Prabhu repeats the tune once again while a cymbal and a bright acoustic piano join in. Now he expands the theme while a warm pad starts filling with chords. The whole arrangement is given a spatial hall acoustics in the recording. Since there are only few instruments at this point in the song both the cymbal and the piano are panned waveringly to add to the spatial effect. Then the female voice comes back to the main tune again. This time she repeats the whole theme along with the orchestration. When she comes back again to the main tune, the sax also joins her and piano chords also start adding. The bass guitar also joins at this moment. After she finishes the theme, the joyous (hero) sax erupts into an impromptu exploration.

In the actual movie, Prabhu now composes an entire composition out of this theme, ready for performance.

Prabhu outlines the song with a simple piano introduction to the second hero Ramesh Arvind, who plays the lead singer in the movie. A simple snare drum and foot drum beat join in now. During the piano introduction, there is a beautiful interleaving of notes. Now Ramesh Arvind starts singing the pallavi, dreaming about Meenakshi.

The first interlude repeats the piano introduction above, along with the sax.

The first charanam starts with Bminor and continues to stress on the accidental A#. Nevertheless, the chords outline only Bminor and G. In the emotional third line of the stanza ("thirumagal thiruppaatham pidiththu vitten"), the chord F#major brings the full effect of the accidental, while the piano ornaments the F#major chord. And in the fifth line, when the singer reaches a high note and cries with emotion, the piano ornaments with the G chord. Then the song comes to anupallavi.

The second interlude starts with the heroine's humming. During the start of the humming, the piano outlines a melody which has the following notes : C#, B, A#, G, F# and E stressing on the accidental. The humming develops as if inspired by this. The humming is a kind of melodic summary of the charanam. At the end of the humming, piano brings it back to the charanam. At this point, tabla joins the drums.

The second charanam is pretty much similar to the first one except the absence of piano and the presence of tabla. The heroine too goes back to anupallavi from charanam. Then Prabhu sings the pallavi as the visuals change to Prabhu's dreams. The piano ornamentations appear again in this pallavi and anupallavi section. At the end of this anupallavi, piano ornamentations end.

The third interlude is a typical hindustani flute recital accompanied by tabla. The raag has hamsadwani shades, but mainly sticks to the major scale. It is interesting to note that the three interludes of the song are all different & innovative; they help the song take several colors as it progresses.

Then the third charanam starts. Towards the end of fifth line of the charanam, a powerful strings section adds momentum and determination to the final words: "en uyir kAthali...". Flute joins when he comes back to anupallavi and pallavi. The song ends with the anupallavi. (The anupallavi part of the song alone has a special duet effect, achieved by overlapping two recordings of the same voice with appropriate panning.)

The song depicts the love triangle in the movie - the two heroes' love for the heroine and the heroine's love for their music - rather interestingly. Rahman has used the same singer for both the heroes, unlike in the song "ennai kaanavillaye netrodu" for a similar situation in Kaadhal Desam. This usage also means the song can be thought of as a simple duet, with the movie background out of the mind.