Popular South Indian playback singer Vani Jayaram breathed her last at Chennai. She was 78. Talking to the media, her maidservant said that the veteran singer did not answer the door this morning. The lady told that the singer was excited on the announcement of Padma Bhushan award and was absolutely normal on Friday. The Government had announced Padma Bhushan award for the late singer this year. Born on 30th November 1945, Vani did playback for over one thousand Indian movies and had recorded over 10 thousand songs.<br />” <br />” Called as the KUYIL for her melodious singing, she sang in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu,Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Gujarati, Haryanvi , Assamese, Tulu and Bengali languages. She had won National Film Awards thrice and also was honoured with a life time achievement award by Filmfare. She won State Government awards from the States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisa and Gujarat. She was also the Best Female Singer at the NAFA event at New York in 2017.<br />” <br />”Born in Vellore in a Tamil family of classically trained musicians as the fifth daughter to Duraisamy Iyengar and Padmavathi, she enrolled herself under Ranga Ramanuja Iyengar, Kadalur Srinivas Iyengar. Her first public performance was at All India Radio at the age of 8. She studied at Queen Mary’s College and was employed with the State Bank of India. She was also trained in the Hindustani Classical music after shifting to Mumbai after her marriage.&nbsp; She won the National award for her rendition on the seven chords of Music which was one of the hits in classical music. The song appears in Apporva Raaham the film in which veteran Kamal Hasan was the hero and Superstar Rajinikanth was introduced as Villain.