Veteran playback singer Vani Jairam passes away at 78
CHENNAI, FEB 4 : National Award-winning veteran playback singer Vani Jairam, who was honoured with the Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, was found dead at her residence on February 4.
Vani’s domestic help Malarkodi saw her last night and came back for work on Saturday morning around 10.30 am according to the police. As she didn’t respond, Malarkodi informed the relatives.
When the door was opened with help of a duplicate key that was with her sister living in Alwarpet, she was found dead with head injuries and heavy loss of blood. Subsequently, the police were informed and her body was taken to the Omandurar government hospital.
The renowned singer was residing in Chennai. She was 78 years old.
Her career spanned five decades and she had recorded around 10,000 songs in different Indian languages.
Hailing from Vellore, she sang in several languages including Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Gujarati, Haryanvi, Assameese, Tulu, and Bengali.
The legendary singer had also recorded thousands of devotional songs and performed several solo concerts across the world as well.
Vani Jairam made her debut as a playback singer in Hindi with the 1971 film Guddi, directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.
Her debut in Malayalam film industry was by singing the famous Salil Chowdhury composition Sourayudhathil Vidarnnoru for the movie Swapnam in 1973.
The same year saw her enter Tamil and Telugu films. She would flourish in all industries and win three national awards.
Vani Jayaram was born as Kalaivani in Vellore on November 30, 1945. She studied at Chennai’s Queen Mary’s college and was employed at the State Bank of India before turning a full-time singer.
She married her husband Jayaram and her family supported her interest in music. Her mother-in-law Padma Swaminathan was a famous Carnatic singer and a social activist.
She had learned vocal forms including the ghazal and bhajan.
“We have filed a case under section 174 of the CrPC after preliminary investigation. We are waiting for the post-mortem report,” said Shekhar Deshmukh, deputy commissioner of police, Triplicane.
Only a week ago, she was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award in the country.
-PTI
