Indian classical singer Madurai Shanmugavadivu “M.S.” Subbulakshmi
died late Saturday in Chennai at the age of 88 (via Sreenath
Sreenivasan).
From Rediff:
“The vocalist died peacefully in her sleep,” Dr. C.V. Krishnaswamy, who treated her at the St. Isabel hospital, told PTI.
The musician was admitted to the hospital on December 2 following a bout of viral infection, which later developed into broncho pneumonia.
Her condition worsened on Friday night and she lapsed into a coma as she developed cardiac irregularities. The end came at 23:45 IST.
She was also a chronic diabetic for nearly four decades.
Born as Kunjamma in the temple city of Madurai on September 16, 1916, Subbulakshmi made her debut as a singer at the age of eight and went on to perform in concerts, a domain traditionally reserved for males.
The vocalist immortalized many songs, including “Vaishnava Janatho,” a favorite of Mahatma Gandhi, Meera bhajans, Annamacharya kirthans and the like.
Rediff: M.S. Subbulakshmi passes away
SAJA: Coverage of Indian singer M.S. Subbulakshmi
At the end MSS remained the layperson’s artiste she has always been. She reached the levels of music that many of the finest in India have performed but did so in a way none of her peers have ever managed to. With all her voice, melody, rendition, bhava and gnana she was the only person who could move the humblest of people. I remember the scene at a wedding in Madras in the early ’70s when after the recital she switched off the mike and with her accompanists treated the few 100 who had gathered there – cooks, handymen, (auto)/taxi rickshaw-wallas and a few passengers from a bus that stopped there (Ethiraj Kalayana Mandapam, Madras) to an hour of popular melodies. Those who paid their final respects to her the other day, have been her fans in their early humble days not admirers who have taken on an expensive taste of listening to a Music Academy artiste. Kalam, MS Visvanathan-TK Ramamurthy, Partibhan (the Tamil Actor), Manoram and others have been her fans when listening to MS was at once the least expensive indulgence but the easiest way to afford a thing of eternal beauty. It is sad that a person like Lata M who used to be in the habit of claiming to be a devotee of MS stopped talking about her after earning her own Bharat Ratna – probably imagining that she has pulled abreast of MS. The least Lata could have done was to have said something (however insincere) on MS’s passing away. Well to her fans now MS will live forever. “Bhaja Govindam, Kaushalya Supraja”- Kurai ondrum illai.