P.Surendranath 
Celestial singer as they call Yesudas in South India.
1976, Chitchor
Amol Palekar, Zareena Wahab...,Ravindra Jain.
Padma Vibhushan Yesudas has sung more than 70,000 songs, highest in India probably by any singer in any language.
He has sung in 17 Indian languages.
He has a record for recording 11 songs in 11 languages in a day. Staggering !!
He sang his first song (4 lines only) … ‘jaathi bhedam, matha dwesham” in ‘Kalpadukal’ film, sung in reverence of Sree Narayana Guru; a social reformer of Kerala.
Music was given by MB Sreenivasan. This song was sung on 14th November 1961.
He burst upon Hindi music world in 1973 in the movie ‘Choti Si Baat’, the music director of which was Salil Choudhary.
Song is - 'janeman janeman tere do nayan.'
Ravindra Jain, the Hindi music director who gave Yesudas maximum Hindi songs to sing, would adore him so much that he took Yesudas’ name.
When he was asked whom he would like to see first if he was given eyes, he said Yesudas first (he was blind). Ethereal !!
Most of this generation grew up listening Yesudas’ highly popular songs in Hindi : specially this song became almost a national sensation in 1976 !!
Long live Yesudas Sir as he turns 84 years on January 10.
A divine singer.
(Collection by Pappula Surendranath, High Court Advocate, Hyderabad)
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