Padma awardee singer Vani Jairam (78) passed away, on Saturday, February 4, at her residence on Haddows Road, Nungambakkam in Chennai. She recorded more than 10 thousand songs across 19 languages including Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada. Reports say that she fell from her bed and injured her forehead. Very recently, on January 25, she was announced to receive one of the highest civilian awards, Padma Bhushan. Cinema stars, singers, and musicians conveyed their condolences to the family members and friends of Vani Jairam.
She was born in 1945 in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore district. She started her career in Tamil cinema in 1974 by singing the "Malligai En Mannan Mayangum" song in a Tamil movie Dheerga Sumangali. The song was written by poet Vali and the music was composed by MS Viswanathan. She was honoured with state awards from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Odisha. She is also a recipient of three national awards.
In 1975 she received the National award for best female playback singer for Apoorva Raagangal movie. In 1980, she got her second National award for best female playback singer for her songs in the Telugu movie, Sankarabharanam. She received her third national award for "Anathineeyara Hara" song in a Telugu movie Swathi Kiranam.
Vani completed her golden jubilee as a professional singer in 2021 and she worked with legendary musicians including MS Viswanathan, Ilaiyaraaja, KV Mahadevan, Madan Mohan, RD Burman, and AR Rahman among others.
Vani also rendered many memorable Malayalam film songs, beginning with the acclaimed ‘Sourayudathil’ for Salil Chowdhury in the film Swapnam (1973). She went on to render hundreds of songs, working with all the major composers of the time including Devarajan Master, Dakshinamurthy, Baburaj, MB Sreenivasan and MB Viswanathan. Yakshi njanoru yakshi, Aasha Masam, Kaatu chennu, Kanana poikayil are a few of her memorable songs. Newer musicians like Jerry Amaldev, Johnson and Raveendran also had Vani sing many beautiful melodies like Manjadi Kunnil and Priyatharamakum. Most recently, she sang a few popular duets like the popular 'Olanjali kuruvi' in 1983 (2014) and 'Pookal Panineer' in Action Hero Biju (2016).