S. Janaki

Sistla Janaki was born on 23 April 1938 in Pallapatla, a village in the Repalle area of the old Guntur district in the Madras Presidency. The village is now in Bapatla district, Andhra Pradesh. Her mother tongue was Telugu. Her father, Sistla Sreeramamurthy, was an Ayurvedic doctor and teacher.

In the mid 1940s, when she was about three, the family moved to Sircilla in the old Karimnagar district (now Telangana), where her father worked as a government teacher and Ayurveda practitioner. She spent most of her childhood there. In an interview that circulated widely after her death, she remembered travelling with her parents by bullock cart to Vemulawada to watch the Telugu classic Balanagamma, then singing every song from it and even imitating the singer's crying voice. Neighbours often asked her to sing. She listened closely to Lata Mangeshkar on the family radio and later said, "Lata was my first guru."

Janaki received her primary education in Sircilla. She learned the basics of music from a local nadaswaram vidwan, Paidiswamy, and gave her first stage performance at the age of nine. According to Wikipedia she never pursued extended formal training in classical music, although she later released an album of Thyagaraja kritis and sang demanding classical pieces in films.

An uncle who was involved in theatre had her sing Lata Mangeshkar songs during the intervals of plays, which gave her early experience in front of audiences.

Accounts of how she reached the film industry differ. Wikipedia says an uncle advised her to move to Madras (Chennai) to work with composer R. Sudarsanam at AVM Studios. The Indian Express wrote that filmmaker B. R. Panthulu and music director T. G. Lingappa heard her sing at a show and asked her to come to Chennai. She debuted as a playback singer in the Tamil film Vidhiyin Vilayattu in 1957 and sang "Nee Aasa Adiyaasa" for the Telugu film MLA the same year, recording in six languages in her first year.

In Tamil, "Singaravelane Deva" from Konjum Salangai (1962) brought her into the limelight, and M. S. Viswanathan gave her hits through the 1960s. Ilaiyaraaja chose her for three songs in his debut film Annakkili (1976), beginning a partnership that produced hundreds of songs, many of them duets with S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. She also sang for A. R. Rahman early in his career, including "Margazhi Thingal" (Sangamam).

Kannada was the language in which she sang the most. She was the leading female voice of Kannada cinema in the 1970s and 1980s, working with G. K. Venkatesh, Vijaya Bhaskar, M. Ranga Rao, Rajan-Nagendra and later Hamsalekha. Radio listeners called her and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam the "love birds" of Kannada film song. In Malayalam she worked with M. S. Baburaj, V. Dakshinamoorthy, M. B. Sreenivasan and Salil Chowdhury, and in Telugu she sang continuous hits from the 1960s to the mid 1990s. Bappi Lahiri introduced her to Hindi films in the 1980s, where her songs included "Yaar Bina Chain Kahan Re" (Saaheb) and "Dil Mein Ho Tum" (Satyamev Jayate). She also sang in Odia, Tulu, Konkani, Bengali, Punjabi and Urdu, and recorded single songs in Japanese, German, English and Sinhala.

She announced her retirement from film and stage singing in 2016 and gave her farewell concert in Mysuru on 28 October 2017. She returned once more in 2018 to sing for the Tamil film Pannaadi.

Janaki was celebrated as a "queen of expression and modulation". She shaped her voice to the age and character on screen, singing as a child in "Kanna Nee Engey" from Rusi Kanda Poonai (1980), a song she also wrote, and in "Mummy Mummy" from the Malayalam film Ee Thanalil Ithiri Neram (1985). Singer Chinmayi Sripaada recalled hearing her on stage sound "like a child, like a woman AND a Man" in a single song.

She named the Kannada song "Shiva Shiva Ennada Naaligeyeke" from Hemavathi, composed by L. Vaidyanathan in the ragas Thodi and Abhogi with fast swara passages, as the toughest of her career. K. J. Yesudas remembered that she sang standing perfectly still at the microphone, with only her lips moving. She also composed and wrote songs, and singer Shweta Mohan worked with her on a project titled S. Janaki The Composer.

Janaki married V. Ramprasad, who came from Mysuru, in 1959. He encouraged her career and accompanied her to most of her recordings. He died of a cardiac arrest in 1997, and from then on she was known for wearing plain white or uncoloured sarees.

The couple's only son, Murali Krishna, shared his parents' love of the arts and performed Bharatanatyam. He lived with his mother in her later years and died of a heart attack on 22 January 2026, six months before her. Her granddaughter Apsara Vydyula announced Janaki's death and performed her last rites. Telugu was her mother tongue, but she also spoke and wrote Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi. In her last years she lived at Bogadi in Mysuru.

Colleagues described Janaki as deeply spiritual. Actor Suresh Gopi called her "a deeply spiritual person with a divine presence" and "the embodiment of love". She composed and wrote bhajans, a point Ilaiyaraaja made in his tribute. In 2002 she returned to Sircilla and prayed at the Lakshmi Venkateshwara Swamy temple, where she had spent time as a child.

She often said that the love of listeners mattered more to her than official honours. When she declined the Padma Bhushan in 2013 she told reporters, "I consider the recognition of my fans in various languages as the highest award."

Janaki won four National Film Awards for Best Female Playback Singer: for "Senthoora Poove" in 16 Vayathinile (Tamil, 1977), "Ettumanoorambalathil" in Oppol (Malayalam, 1981), "Vennello Godari Andham" in Sitaara (Telugu, 1984) and "Inji Iduppazhagi" in Thevar Magan (Tamil, 1992). Across states she won 33 film awards, including more than ten Kerala State Film Awards from 1970 to 1984, ten Nandi Awards for films (plus two for television songs), six Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and an Orissa State Film Award.

Other honours included the Kalaimamani from Tamil Nadu (1986), the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award for South cinema (1997), an honorary doctorate from the University of Mysore for her service to Kannada cinema, the Karnataka Rajyotsava Prashasti (2014), the SIIMA Lifetime Achievement Award (2016) and the first M. S. Subbulakshmi National Award from the Tamil Nadu government (2019).

In January 2013 the Government of India named Janaki among that year's Padma Bhushan recipients. She declined it. "I have been in the field for 55 long years and they thought of recognizing me only now. The award feels like a form of tokenism to appease me," she told the Times of India, adding, "Just giving us a Padma Bhushan in our twilight years won't suffice."

She said she had no grouse against the government and refused the honour "with all due respect", but she argued that artists from the South were often overlooked or honoured only late, naming singer P. Leela, who was recognised only after her death. She also listed artists such as P. Susheela, P. B. Srinivas and T. M. Soundararajan as worthy of the Bharat Ratna. Later reports said she felt she deserved the Bharat Ratna herself. Her son Murali Krishna told PTI, "She should have got it long long time ago."

Janaki is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential singers in Indian music. Her recordings span films, albums, television and radio in about 20 languages, and her name became shorthand for range and emotional detail. Composer M. M. Keeravani called her "truly the Asha Bhosle of the South" and said she was always the first to encourage younger singers. Shweta Mohan wrote that her songs were a "textbook" she was still learning from.

After her death, Karnataka Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar said the state would discuss with the film industry how to memorialise her in Mysuru. Hamsalekha proposed a meditation centre and music school at the farm in Kaniyanahundi where she was cremated, and actor Jaimala, chair of the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce, called for a music study centre at the University of Mysore.

Janaki's long career made her a regular subject of television interviews, including a full-length conversation in Sakshi TV's Legends series and a Jaya TV programme in which she looked back on her musical journey. Her 2017 farewell concert in Mysuru was covered by Kannada television. Record labels including Sony Music South and Ilaiyaraaja's official channel keep compilations of her songs in circulation, and after her death actor Trisha Krishnan said it had been one of the greatest honours to carry Janaki Amma's name in one of her films.

Janaki developed breathing problems on the night of 10 July 2026, according to family sources quoted by PTI. Apollo BGS Hospitals in Mysuru said she was admitted at 12:49 PM on 11 July 2026 in a critical condition and moved to intensive care. She suffered a cardiac arrest, then multiple cardiac arrests despite resuscitation, and was declared dead at 7:30 PM. She was 88. Family sources described the cause as age-related ailments.

Her body lay in state at Maharaja's College Grounds in Mysuru on 12 July, where fans, ministers and film figures paid their respects. That evening she was cremated with full state honours, according to Telugu Brahmin rites, at a farmhouse in Kaniyanahundi in H.D. Kote taluk. The farmhouse belonged to her admirer and caretaker Naveen, and the cremation was held there because she had wished it. Her granddaughter Apsara Vydyula performed the last rites. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President C. P. Radhakrishnan, Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Ilaiyaraaja, P. Susheela and many others paid tribute.