Santha P. Nair

Born on 5^th September 1929, Thissur, Santha P. Nair was a renowned playback singer in Malayalam cinema since this field was in its nascent stage. She is considered to be the mother of a noted playback singer Lalitha Raju who is currently married to music composer-cum-playback singer J M Raju. Santha Nair’s grandson Aalap Raju Aalap Raju is an eminent playback singer and a mel >> Read More... is also a noted playback singer in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam cinema.

It is believed that Santha P.Nair wanted to groom her daughter Lalitha as a renowned playback singer in Malayalam film industry. She was married to scriptwriter and director K. Padmanabhan Nair who had directed and written five movies so far.

She was born in Thrissur to Vasudeva Poduval and Lakshmi. She studied at Queen Mary’s College in Chennai. She had the potential of singing at a very tender age. She was good even in the composing music and people noticed when she composed a song for a movie ‘ Ezhu Rathrikal Ezhu Rathrikal is a horror and supernatural based >> Read More... ’ (1968) which was composed by Salil Chowdhury Salil Chowdhury was a music composer, instrumental >> Read More... . The film was directed by “Chemmen” fame director Ramu Kariyat. The song was ‘Makkathu Poyvarum’ from ‘Ezhu Rathrikal’.

After hearing the composition, veteran composer Salil Chowdhury retained the original track composed by Shantha P .Nair and both of them were credited with the music composer for the movie.

Shantha P Nair also sang a song for internationally acclaimed movie 'Chemmen’ for song 'Puthan Valakkare' which had vocals of K. J. Yesudas, P. Leela, Chorus, KP Udayabhanu.

She got her first playback singing break for movie ‘Thiramala’ (1953), the music of which was composed by Vimal Kumar. Her first song ''Ammathan Thankakudame” was considered to be a lullaby. She has 100 songs so far over one-and-half decade (1951 to 1967).

She was the only singer who had impressed Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru by singing ‘ Vande Mataram Popular Hindi Channel ‘Aaj Tak’ started its docume >> Read More... ’ for an event. She is also the recipient of Sangeet Natak Academy Award in 1987.

Before coming into movies as a playback singer, she was associated with AIR at Kozhikode. She passed away on 26 July 2008.