Singer Swarnalatha Died Today

Actor Murali’s death left us in trauma few days ago. Before we could recover from that, we have another bad news.
The famous playback singer Swarnalatha passed away today (Sunday, Sep 12, 2010) at a private hospital in Chennai due to liver illness. She was 37.

Swarnalatha was not well for sometime due to improper functioning of liver. The body of Swarnalatha was brought to her residence at Saligramam,Chennai and has kept there for public homage.

Hailing from Palakkad, she had been singing for films since 1982. She was introduced by Illayaraja in 1982 with a song ‘Chinnanchiru Kiliye Kannamma’ in ‘Neethikku Thandanai’.

Yet she became popular with ‘Povoma Oorgolam’ – Chinna Thambi. ‘Aattama’ – Captain Prabhakaran, ‘Raakozhi Rendum ‘ -Uzhavan, ‘Kuliruthu’ – Tajmahal, ‘Evano Oruvan’ – Alaipayuthey, ‘Porale Ponnuthaayi’ – Karuthamma, ‘Usilampatti’ – Gentleman, ‘Thirumana Malargal’ – Poovellam Un Vaasam, ‘Thuli Thuiliyaai’ – Paarvai Ondrey Pothume and more to note are hers.

She had rendered songs in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu, etc. Swarnalatha was also a dubbing artiste and won the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer for her rendition of the famous song Porale Ponnuthayi from the film Karuththamma.The song was composed by A.R.Rahman, with whom she has given lot of memorable songs.

She was one of the ‘melodious’ (eg. Maalayil Yaaro Manathodu Pesa from Chatriyan) as well as ‘experimenting’ singer (eg. Mukkabla of Kadhalan) of her times.

Singer Chinmayi has tweeted: “Singer Swarnalatha passes on. A singer I have admired and looked up to.”

Our sincere condolences to the family members of the singer.