Vani Jairam (English: Vani Jairam, born- November 30, 1945; death- February 4, 2023) was a famous Indian playback singer. She is also called “Mira of Modern India”. She was often the choice of many musicians across India from the 1970s to the late 1990s. Apart from Hindi, Vani Jayaram also sang in many Indian languages like Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya, Gujarati and Bengali. She won the ‘National Film Award’ for Best Playback Singer thrice. In 2012, he was awarded the ‘Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award’-South for his achievements in South Indian film music.
Vani Jayaram was born on November 30, 1945 in a Tamil family in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. His childhood name was Kalaivani. His father’s name was Duraisamy Iyengar and mother’s name was Padmavati, who were musicians trained under Ranga Ramunaja Iyengar. His parents had three sons and six daughters. At the age of 8, Vani Jayaram gave her first public performance at All India Radio, Madras. She was a student of Queen Mary College, Madras University. After her studies, Vani got a job in State Bank of India, Madras and later in the year 1967, she was transferred to Hyderabad.
Vani Jayaram was married into a family that was already musical. Her husband’s name is T.S. Jayaraman and his mother-in-law were Padma Swaminathan, the son of social activist and Carnatic music singer F.G. Natesa was the daughter of Iyer. Her husband T.S. Jayaraman died on 25 September 2018 at the age of 79.
After marrying Jayaram in 1969, Vani Jayaram came to Mumbai with her family. After coming here, he got transferred from State Bank of India, Hyderabad branch to Mumbai. After some time, after hearing Vaani’s singing, her husband Jairam got her trained in Hindustani classical music and she started taking music lessons from Ustad Abdul Rehman Khan of Patiala Gharana. While learning music here, he left his bank job and made music his profession. In music, he learned thumri, ghazal and bhajan vocals and did his first music show in the year 1969. During this time he met musician Vasant Desai. He heard Vaani’s voice and gave her a chance to sing for his album. Marathi people liked this album a lot. After this, songs started coming to him one after the other.
In his career spanning 50 years since 1971, Vani Jayaram has recorded more than 10,000 songs in more than 19 languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Bhojpuri, Telugu, Oriya, Malayalam, Tulu, Kannada, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali. Vani Jayaram got the biggest break in the year 1971 with ‘Guddi’. He worked with many legendary musicians, including M.S. Vishwanathan, Satyam, Chakraborty KV. Mahadevan and Ilaiyaraaja. Vani Jayaram was honored with the National Award thrice. Apart from this, he received awards from many states for singing songs in different languages and was honored with ‘Padma Bhushan’ by the Government of India in the year 2023.
Famous singer Vani Jayaram died on February 4, 2023. He was found dead in his home in Chennai. Vani Jayaram was 78 years old. According to the information received, the police report has described his death as unnatural as the exact cause of his death has not been known yet. However, when the police found Vani Jayaram’s dead body in his house, he had head injuries and had lost a lot of blood. This head injury is being said to be the cause of his death.
Vani Jayaram was awarded the Padma Bhushan just a week before his death. Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences on his demise. In a tweet, he remembered the contribution of Vani Jayaram and while paying tribute to him, wrote, “Vani Jayaram ji is remembered by the people for his melodious voice and his contribution to the art world. He has sung songs in many languages. His presentations evoke various emotions.
