Veteran playback singer Latha Raju still going strong

She has dubbed for various actors and acted in a few Malayalam films but it is the melodies she crooned that has helped veteran playback singer Latha Raju, celebrating her golden jubilee in cinema, carve her own niche.
She is still going strong, albeit in music albums composed by her husband, besides rendering devotional songs and doing stage performances.
Latha Raju's first song was in the 1962 Malayalam film 'Snehadeepam'.
"I used to go with my mother Shanta P Nair (popular singer in the 1950s and 60s) for rehearsals. Those days recordings were done after rehearsals. Music director M B Sreenivasan heard my rendering of a popular Mukesh song. He then suggested to the movie producer that it could be better that a child sing for a child."

The song,'Onnaam tharam baloon tharaam, oru nalla peeppi tharaam', picturised on Baby Vinodhini,was okayed in the first take itself, Latha, mother of popular playback singer, Aalaap Raju, told PTI.
"I got a remuneration of Rs 101 for the effort,"said Latha Raju, a recipient of the prestigious Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi awards in 2008. The song is even now popular.

The same year she sang 'Thaatheyyam kaattilu thakkaalikkaattilu', picturised on Kamal Haasan as a child actor in his first Malayalam movie 'Kannum Karalum'.
Though she met Haasan at some functions years later, she never broached the fact that she did the playback for him in his first Malayalam movie. "I am an introvert in these aspects," she said.

Hers was a arts-cum-music inclined family. Her mother, a popular singer, had rendered the evergreen 'Thumbi thumbi vaa vaa', the first song penned by famous poet-lyricist Vayalar Ramavarma in the 1956 movie 'Koodappirappu'.