BD NarayankarBengaluru, July 12 -- S Janaki is gone. It sounds odd even to write those words. For generations of Indians, she was never a celebrity in the conventional sense. She was simply a voice-a voice that slipped into our lives so quietly that we forgot it belonged to a real person.
We saw heroines on the screen. We applauded actors. We memorised dialogues. But when the lights came on and the cinema emptied, it was Janaki's voice that walked home with us.
She did not sing songs. She inhabited them.
There are technically superior singers. There are more glamorous singers. There are singers with greater public personas. There has never been another S. Janaki.
She could sound like an innocent village girl, a mischievous teenager, a w...