chennai/Hyderabad:
Days after her fans celebrated the President conferring the Padma Bhushan on her, well-known singer Vani Jairam was found dead. She was 78. There was an injury on her forehead and further investigation is on under Cr Pc Section 174 (circumstances raising suspicion over death) police said. It appears, the singer might have fallen down and injured herself, police said. The cause of her death is not known.
One of the immortal voices of the South Indian film industry, Vani Jayaram sang in 19 languages. She was living at her Haddows Road home in Chennai. Her husband Jayaram passed away in 2018. Since then, she had been living alone.
The lead singer of ‘Shankarabharanam’ movie, Vani made her Telugu film debut with ‘Abhimanavanthulu’ in 1973 with the song Eppativale kaadhura. Her songs ‘Dorukuna ituvanti seva’, ‘Aanatineeyara..’, ‘Ennenno janmala bandham’, ‘Ningi nela okataayene’ and ‘Poojalu cheya poolu techaanu’, ‘Nuvvu vastavani brindavani..’, Sagara sangamame’ are sung across generations.
Vani Jayaram won three national awards and sang more than 10,000 songs in 19 languages, including in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Gujarati, Odia, Marathi, Haryanvi, Assamese, Tulu and Bengali. She had won state government awards from Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh.
Born at Kalaivani in Vellore to a traditional Tamil Iyengar family of classical musicians, Vani was initiated into the world of music by Ranga Ramanuja Iyengar and later by Kadalur Srinivasa Iyengar, T.R. Balasubramanian and R.S. Mani.
She was employed at the State Bank of India in Secunderabad and she quit the job after she started training for Hindustani music under Ustad Abdul Rahman Khan of the Patiala Gharana.
Vani was regarded as one of the very few South Indian singers who had an in-depth knowledge of Hindustani classical music and was at ease belting out Hindi, Gujarati and Haryanvi songs.
Her first music album was a duet with Kumar Gandharva composed by Vasant Desai.
A highly accomplished musician, Vani Jayaram was at ease with old music directors as well as the new generation. She was a favourite for both Ilaiyaraaja and AR Rahman.
The Tamil Nadu Police registered a case of suspicious death over the passing away of Vani Jayaram after she was found dead in her house on Saturday.After the death of her husband Jayaram in 2018, Vani Jayaram was living alone at her residence on Haddows Road in Chennai.
A maidservant, Malarkodi, who used to do daily chores at her residence, arrived at the home at 11 am and even after the repeated ringing of the bell there was no response from inside.
She immediately alerted Vani Jayaram’s sister Uma and both of them entered the house with duplicate keys and found her dead on the floor of her bedroom. She had an injury on her forehead. The Police were informed and her body was taken to Kilpauk Hospital in Chennai for post-mortem.
A forensic team of the Tamil Nadu police is inspecting the residence of Vani Jayaram.
When contacted, Shekhar Deshmukh, DCP, Triplicane, told IANS that the police are conducting an investigation and details will be known only after the post-mortem report comes.
