VAANI JAYARAM'S TALENT WAS AWE INSPIRING

VAANI JAYARAM SANG OVER 10,000 SONGS IN MANY INDIAN LANGUAGES AND A LOT OF DEVOTIONALS. SHE WAS HONOURED THRICE WITH NATIONAL AWARDS AND ALSO A FEW STATE AWARDS. THIS YEAR SHE WAS SELECTED FOR PADMABHUSHAN’ FOR HER INVALUABLE SERVICE TO THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

- S BAALI

“Humko Man kiShakti Dena…” The mindgoes back to the 1970s. Yes, pray to God to give enough strength to bear this shocking and irreparable loss to all the connoisseurs of music in general and Vaani Jayaram’s fans in particular. Still unable to reconcile her departure from this eternal world, felt like penning a few words about this Gana Saraswathi who left us all, all of a sudden, creating a void…

Born into a traditional Iyengar family on November 30, 1945 as the fifth daughter of Smt. Padmavathy and Sri Duraiswamy Iyengar, in Vellore, she was actually given the name ‘Kalaivaani’. Since the family had a good musical background, it was natural for Kalaivaani to pursue music learning Carnatic Classical under the able guidance of Cuddalore Sreenivasa Iyengar, TR Balasubramaniam and RS Mani. Her first recording in the AIR was when she was eight years old. Even as she continued with music, she completed her degree from Queen Mary's College, Madras (today’s Chennai). 

Later, listening to Radio Ceylon inspired her to get involved with Hindi film music, sowing the seeds of interest to become a film playback artiste, memorizing and reproducing all the songs to perfection.