Veteran singer, Padma Bhushan awardee Vani Jairam dies at 78
Veteran singer and Padma Bhushan awardee, Vani Jairam, was found dead at her residence in Chennai on Saturday (February 4), said media reports. The 78-year-old singer was accorded the prestigious Padma Bhushan ahead of Republic Day 2023. The cause of her death is not yet known, and the news of her sudden demise has shocked the film and music industries.
About the legendary playback singer's death
According to Chennai's Thousand Lights Police, the veteran singer was found dead inside her residence in the city's Nungambakkam neighborhood. However, details on the cause of death and her last rites are awaited. The late singer's husband, Jairam, left for the heavenly abode in the year 2018. They got married in 1969, the same year when her music career reportedly began.
More details on her death are awaited
Tamil Nadu | Veteran playback singer Vani Jairam found dead at her residence in Chennai, say Thousand Lights Police officials. Details awaited.
— ANI (@ANI) February 4, 2023
She was conferred with the Padma Bhushan award for this year.
(Pic: Vani Jairam's Facebook page) pic.twitter.com/TEMHbHw11s
A look at her career
Jairam's music career spanned over five decades. After undergoing training in Carnatic classical music, she enrolled in Hindustani music training under Patiala Gharana's Ustad Abdul Rehman Khan. She worked as a playback singer for Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam cinema. She also went on to lend her voice to songs in other languages like English, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Oriya, Marwari, and Haryanvi.
Jairam's career in Hindi cinema
The breakthrough in Jairam's Bollywood career came with Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Guddi (1971) with the song Bole Re Papihara. She also provided her vocals for the popular school prayer Humko Mann Ki Shakti Dena and Hari Bin Kaise Jeeun in it. She worked with several legendary music artists like Manna Dey, RD Burman, Asha Bhosle, Naushad, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, and Laxmikant-Pyarelal, among others.
Award and honors
Apart from receiving the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award, Jairam was also accorded three National Film Awards in the years 1975, 1980, and 1991, respectively. Other than these, she also won three Filmfare Awards (including one for the song Mere Toh Giridhar Gopal in Gulzar's 1979 film Meera) and numerous state awards by the governments of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Odisha.
