In another case of a death hoax being spread about a famous person, playback singer P Susheela was rumoured to have passed away on Thursday night, and social media was flooded with tributes and condolences. So in case you’ve seen one of those messages - here’s the truth: The singer is very much alive and well, and is currently in the US.
Some of the Facebook posts reacting to the hoax read:
“No words for griefness... as singer P Susheela passed away from all her fans.We miss u mam. Ur voice make us to remember u ever. “
“A LEGENDARY SINGER P.SUSEELA IS NO MORE. RIP. ... SO SAD NEWS FOR ALL MUSIC LOVERS. NO ONE CAN REPLACE HER PLACE. STILL YOU ARE LIVING IN OUR HEART..”
Twitterati also expressed their shock and grief.
However, this was proven to be wrong after Riaz Ahmed, a Kollywood public relations official, tweeted that she was hale and hearty, and was doing well, and was currently living in Dallas, USA.
#PSuseela Amma is hale & healthy, presently in Dallas city, USA. Kindly don't believe in rumours pic.twitter.com/GfsgDErLkG
— RIAZ K AHMED (@RIAZtheboss) November 3, 2017
Following this, the singer herself released a video to counter the rumours. In the recording, the singer told fans that she was alive and well, and is visiting the United States at the moment, and will be returning to India on Saturday.
P Susheela won the Guinness World Record for recording the highest number of songs in several languages in March 2016. These include only those sung after 1960 – the singer has recorded over 17,965 solo, duet and chorus-backed songs in six Indian languages since the 1960s, according to the Guinness World Records. The count would be a lot higher if songs that she had sung before 1960 had been considered as well. Some sources put the number at 40,000!
The singer has sung songs in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and more.
Praised as a melody queen, "Enthan vullam tulli vilyaduvathum yeno," "unnai kan thedutey" "brindavanamum nandakumaranum yavarukkum" were among her Tamil super hits.
Celebrities are routinely killed off by social media, only to be discovered that they are very much alive a few hours later. Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Lata Mangeshkar, Farida Jalal, Shweta Tiwari etc have all been victims of death hoaxes. Another legendary singer, S Janaki’s retirement was misreported by the media, and her death hoax unleashed a flood of condolence messages for the singer online.