The queen of minstrelsy, whose voice could soar as much as her popularity could, and could bow as low as her humility often commanded her to, celebrates her birthday today.

 S Janaki, despite the white starched cotton saree that she always sports, is still our most colourful singer, even five decades after she crooned her first song. Her voice is the stuff that legends are made of, with a malleability for moods that many young singers of today can only have envy for.

 If she was the voice of adolescent admirations of Sridevi’s in Senthoora Poove, she was equally the voice of the rustic tale of gratefulness in Inji Iduppazhaga. Interestingly, both performances were found National Award worthy. If you were to ask music buffs, they would name hundreds of her 30,000 songs as award-worthy, and they wouldn’t be wrong in saying so. If she was the voice of Savithri, she was equally the voice of an exuberant Preity Zinta in Nenjiniley, one of her immortal renditions for AR Rahman in Uyire. Forming a formidable duo in the company of SPB, S Janaki has been the reigning queen for music in the years and with time, her voice has only slowly dimmed.

A singer who has sung in as may as 13 languages, it would not be unfair to call her as popular in South India as Lata Mangeshkar is, up north. In fact, comparisons among the duo have been rife form the time they began singing, with Janaki getting her first chance to sing a song, after auditioning with a Lata Mangeshkar number.

With years gone by, S Janaki might have taken the bow from playback singing, but to many singers who are here today, she is a colossus who peak is almost impossible to attain. Here’s wishing Janaki-amma, as she is most often called,a happy birthday and lots of happiness!

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