Vani was born in Vellore in Tamil Nadu, November 30, 1945 and was a child prodigy who could differentiate between various ragas. Her mother was a singer and the disciple of the famous musicologist Ranga Ramanuja Iyer. Vani’s sisters were all professional classical singers but she was the only one to take up playback singing. Belonging to a large family of three brothers and six sisters, Vani says, “Besides my younger sister and me, nobody is around now.”

Vani Jairam at the recording of Bole Re Papi Hara.

Speaking about her early days, Vani says, “I commenced my career singing devotional music. I remember having performed at the Bhajan Sammelan for Sur Singar Samsad, where singers like Purushottam Das Jalota (Anup Jalota’s father), Hari Om Sharan and others participated. In fact before I became a playback singer, I was known as a singer of devotional music. In 1970, on December 22, I recorded my first Hindi film song for Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s ‘Guddi’. The songs recorded were Hum Ko Man Ki Shakti Dena and Bole Re Papi Hara with music composition by Vasant Desai and lyrics written by Gulzar. These two songs became great hits, winning me my first national award. Hum Ko Man Ki has even been introduced as a prayer in so many schools. In many programmes, even today people love to listen to Bole Re Papi Hara again and again.”
Prior to the recording of ‘Guddi’, Vasant Desai recorded Marathi songs by Vani, which were used in Marathi plays featuring the dynamic Bal Gandharva.
Five decades of singing in 19 languages, for over 1000 movies and 20,000 recordings, Vani is

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