Kochi: Legendary playback singer S Janaki, died at the age of 88 at a hospital in Mysuru.
Janakiamma, as she was fondly called in the industry, is also called as Nightingale of South India.
Janaki received four National Film Awards and 33 different State Film Awards.
Born on April 23, 1938 in Pallapatla, Repalle Taluka, located in Guntur within the Madras Presidency of British India, she spent most of her childhood in Sircilla, where she made her first on-stage performance at just nine years old.
She was introduced to the world of music by a Nadaswaram vidwan named Paidiswamy even as she did not get formal training in classical music.
In 1959, Janaki married V Ramprasad who passed away in 1997 following a cardiac arrest.
While Janaki’s mother tongue was Telugu, she sang in different languages.
She recorded over 48,000 songs in films, albums, television, and radio, which includes solos, duets, chorus and title tracks in Telugu,Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Sanskrit, Odia, Tulu, Urdu, Punjabi, Badaga, Bengali, Konkani, English, Japanese, German, and Sinhala.
The language in which she sang the most songs in her career was Kannada, followed by Malayalam. Janaki began her singing career in Tamil film Vidhiyin Vilayattu of 1957 at the age of 19 and recorded songs in six different languages in the same year.
She was active in the music industry for 60 years. In 2016 she announced her retirement from singing for films and stage appearances to return in 2018, singing for the Tamil film Pannaadi.
Janaki has won 4 National Film Awards and 33 different State Film Awards. She is a recipient of an honorary doctorate from the University of Mysore, the Kalaimamani award from the Tamil Nadu State Government, and the Rajyotsava Prashasti award from the Government of Karnataka.
In 2013, she rejected Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award of the Government of India.
S Janaki passes away
