indeed renowned, but has absolutely no airs about her at all. She says, “The moment you feel satisfied, you become stagnant and you will never grow, I have a long way to go.”
Vani has sung in Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Odia etc. One of her most popular Bengali songs was Shehi Gaan Kanu Ami for the film ‘Pampa’ with music by Nirmal Chakraborty. With many firsts to her credit, she says “Many songs of mine have made actors, stars.’’ For instance Sridevi’s first Tamil film ‘Moonru Mudichu’ and first Hindi film ‘Solva Sawan’ had songs sung by Vani. Juhi Chawla’s first Kannada film ‘Prema Loka’ had a song sung by Vani.

Vani ruled the Malayalam industry for over a decade, being the leading playback singer, singing along with established names like Yesudas, Jayachandran etc. Vani says, “While in Mumbai I was getting a lot of invitations to sing for Hindi cinema but slowly the invitations for south Indian cinema became more, so ultimately I decided to shift to Chennai.”
Vani won the National Award for her songs in ‘Guddi’ (Hindi), ‘Apoorva Ragangal’ (Tamil) and ‘Sankarabharanam’ and ‘Swati’ (Telugu). Vani has won several other best playback singer awards from varied states and the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement award for her contribution to film music.

Bhavan's Journal,May 15, 2022∎ 49