There were numerous songs sung by Suryakumari of which few of them are "Maa Telugu Talliki", "Mallepoodhandalu", "O Mahatma", "Satapatra Sundari", "Maamidichettunu" and others.

[6] Tanguturi Suryakumari also sang in a feature-length documentary film about Mahatma Gandhi, which was made by a patriotic Tamil writer and journalist, A. K. Chettiar.

Her presence was a major attraction at meetings of the Indian National Congress, and her recordings reached rural areas unvisited by politicians.

Even today, her most famous song, "Maa Telugu Thalli" (in praise of her mother tongue), is sung at the start of social functions in her home state of Andhra.

Altogether, Surya appeared in some 25 Indian films in the 1940s and 1950s, singing and acting in a variety of languages, including Telugu, Sanskrit, Tamil, Gujarati, Hindi and English.

Making her debut stage appearance in American theatre, she portrayed Queen Sudarshana in Rabindranath Tagore's play The King of the Dark Chamber in Jan Hus Playhouse Theater, in February 1961.

[8] Annual performances by Suryakumari herself, her students and fellow artists followed at the Purcell Room, in the South Bank Centre, for the next 40 years.

From 1973, Surya was supported in her work by her husband, Harold Elvin, poet, painter and potter, reading his poetry and telling his stories as she sang and played the tanpura and sitar.

Something of the flavour of these gatherings may be gained from the programmes for two events in 1982, with schoolchildren appearing alongside Ben Kingsley in Homage To Mahatma Gandhi, and Larry Adler's harmonica improvisations (complemented by Surya's instrumental accompaniment) in An Indian Pageant.