Kundapur: South India’s Veteran Musician K J Yesudas Celebrates 73rd Birthday at Kollur Temple

By Snehalatha, Udupi
Bellevision Media Network

Kundapur, 11 Jan 2013: No one can believe he is seventy-three-years-old, because he has a melodious voice and great devotional singer, same innocent smile. Nevertheless, he has no ego for being a great musician of our country.

 

Although he is a Christian, he will come back to Mookabika temple, Kollur, near here on January 10 each year.  He had to offer devotional music to appease the Goddess – Mookambike, since he believes that he has gotten the musical talent owing to his devotion to Mookambike.

 

 

He is none other than south India’s renowned playback singer K J Yesudas who has been celebrating his birthday along with his family annually at Mookambike temple, Kollur, near here.

 

Yesudas has been celebrating his birthday at Kollur temple, since the past 3 decades.  He does not enters the sanctuary since he is a Christian, instead he dedicates devotional music for hours together along with his music troupe from his native Kerala at the precinct of Saraswati Mantap that lies besides the sanctuary.

 

 

Yesudas arrived at Kollur on Wednesday January 9 evening along with his family who were welcomed by the temple CEO L S Maruti, temple priest and others.  A few fortunate devotees who were present also enjoyed the devotional music at the temple.

 

Highlights:
 

* Kattasseri Joseph (K J) Yesudas has the title of Gana Gandarva, who has    sang over 50,000 songs in over 17 languages.  It’s a world record indeed.

* He is a classical singer and has bagged 7 national and 43 state-level awards for his playback singing in movies.

* He is the only India musician who bagged both Padmashree and Padmabhooshan awards from union government.

* He has created a record in AVM Studio, Chennai by singing 16 songs in a day for movies of 4 different languages.