Veteran singer Vani Jairam breathed her last today (4th February) in her Madras home. She was 77. She was found dead with an injury on her forehead. Vani used to stay alone after her husband demise some years ago. She did not answer the doorbell when the maid reached her home this morning. The police had to break open the door. They found the veteran singer dead. A team of forensic experts reached the residence in the evening and collected samples.
She had sung around 10,000 songs in 19 languages as diverse as Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu, Marathi, Oriya, Bengali and Bhojpuri. Of these, around 600 songs were in Malayalam. She recently completed 50 years in the field of singing. The hit Bol re pappi pappihara song from Guddi was rendered by Vani Jairam. Her Mere toh Giridhar Gopal song from Meera was also popular.
The veteran singer’s name had just last month been announced for the Padma Bhushan award. But she passed away before the honour was conferred on her. She had won the National Award for best female playback singer thrice.