Singer S P Balasubrahmanyam died after a long battle with COVID-19 in Chennai on September 25. He was 74. The singer fought for his life for close to two months before he breathed his last.
In many of his interviews, SPB had revealed that he did not maintain discipline like various others in the profession. But he planned his life well following his intuitions and took the right decisions because of that.
It so happened in June that the legend had ordered statues for his parents S P Sambamurthy and Sakunthalamma from the popular sculptor Rajkumar Vudayar in East Godavari in Andhra Pradesh. When the work was finished, Balu was very much satisfied and impressed that he then also asked Rajkumar to sculpt a statue for himself. But owing to the lockdown and the pandemic, he was not able to go and give measurements for the model. Rather, he sent his photos for the statue.
The parents statue was to be displayed in August but couldn't due to lockdown.
Rajkumar, talking to BBC Telugu said that he had finished the statue works of SPB and was planning to hand it over to SPB directly after the COVID-19 situation eases but instead was shocked by the news of his death. Speaking about Balu, Rajkumar added that Balu's death was unfortunate and he felt sad for not being able to present the statue to SPB.
Earlier, Indian cinema mourned the loss of S P Balasubrahmanyam, one of the greatest and brightest playback singer, with a Guinness record for having sung over 40,000 songs, spread across 16 languages, in the last five decades.
The singer, praised as 'Padum Nila' (singing moon) and 'Isai Megam' (music cloud) by his fans for his mellifluous voice was tested positive for coronavirus and was admitted to MGM Healthcare in Chennai on August 5.