Playback singer S.Janaki passed away on July 11 at Mysuru. She was 88.
She was an artiste whose career spanned successive generation of composers. She sang over 40,000 songs in several.langusges for six decades.
Musical preferences and styles evolved. Technology underwent revolutionary changes.
But Janaki remained an enduring presence. She was lovingly called “Nightingale of South India”.
Janaki adapted to the changes with ease. Her composers ranged from M S Viswanathan and K V Mahadevan to Balyaraja, Bappi Lahiri and A R Rahman.
Janaki grew up in Pallapatla village in Andhra Pradesh. During her growing up years, she religiously listened to the early songs of Lata Mangeshkar on the family radio and tried to sing like her.
Her uncle was a theatre artist. With no formal training, she would belt out the sings she listened during the interval of the drama.
During one such performance, she caught the attention of film maker, B R Panthulu and music director T Lingappa. They were impressed by her sorpano voice and invited her to Chennai.
It was in this seaside city she recorded her first song for the Tamil film Vidhiyin Vilyattu(1957).She was a Telegu speaker but her songs in Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada featured impeccable pronunciation.
She would study how the words were spoken in daily life, study their meaning. And then she would rehearse to align the edges.
Janaki won four National awards besides numerous state honours. But she refused the Padma Bhusan, saying the award had come too late.
The decision drew attention, as she demanded the Bharat Ratna too, overshadowing an otherwise principled stand. But for six decades, she gave light to the songs she sang.
