100th birth anniversary of renowned Carnatic vocalist M.S. Subbulakshmi

Carnatic music icon, Bharat Ratna M.S. Subbulakshmi's birth centenary is being celebrated on Saturday.

Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi, well known as MS, still lives in every household of India through her famous Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatam- 'Kousalya supraja Rama poorva sandhya pravarthathe'.

Subbulakshmi was born on September 16, 1916 in Madurai to veena player Shanmukavadiver Ammal and Subramania Iyer. Her wide fanbase included political leaders and music maestros. On one occasion, Mahatma Gandhi said that if he speaks instead of singing 'Mere Bhajan' of Ms Subbulakshmi, 'Hari Jaan Ki Bheer', even then he will feel more harmonious than any other song. Lata Mangeshkar called her 'Tapaswini' , Kishori Amonkar has called her 'Eighth Sur', which is higher than seven songs of music.

Subbulakshmi also had a brief but noteworthy movie career - she acted five films, of which Ellis R Dungan directed three. Dungan directed Subbulakshmi in Sakuntalai (1940), Meera (1945) in Tamil and its Hindi version of the same name, made in 1947. Film historians consider Meera to be Subbulakshmi's best ever performance.

 In 1974 she received the 'Ramon Magsaysay' award and in National Integration. In 1998, she was honoured with Bharat Ratna. The United Nations issued a stamp to mark the birth centenary of M.S. Subbulakshmi during celebrations for India's Independence Day. India's Permanent Mission to the UN also organised a photo exhibition from August 15-19 at the world body's headquarters in her honour.