N. Lalitha Bhanu

Lalitha was born at Trivandrum, Kerala, as the daughter of Narayana Bhagavathar and Parvathy ammal on 19 August 1931.
Her father, Narayana Bhagavathar was a violinist and one of the three Trivandrum Brothers. The brothers were Asthana Vidwans (in-house musicians) at the Royal Palace of Trivandrum. She learnt her initial lessons from K. R. Kumaraswamy. Afterwards she joined the Swati Tirunal College of Music, Thiruvananthapuram. Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer was the principal of this college. She received training directly from him. When the family moved from Trivandrum to Madras (now Chennai), Srinivasa Iyer directed her to Musiri Subramania Iyer. She learned many Kritis for about 8 years from Musiri Subramania Iyer. Musiri even made Lalitha sing all the varnams in his own style, thereby imbibing in her the “Musiri bhani”. She learnt many kritis from Papanasam Sivan,[2]

Her first public concert was staged at Mavelikkara (Kerala). She was an artiste in All India Radio and sang for almost 50 years at various radio stations of the AIR including Pondichery and Chennai. She had performed at the Tyagaraja Aradhana.

Lalitha had sung in a few Malayalam and Tamil films as a playback singer. She began her film career with Ponkathir, a Malayalam language film released in 1953. The traditional song "Anjana Sreedhara" was a hit.[3] When this film was made in Tamil with the title Irulukkuppin she sang for that too. She has sung under several music directors including Br Lakshmanan, V. Dakshinamoorthy, G. Ramanathan, Ghantasala, Pendyala Nageshwara Rao and C. N. Pandurangan.

All these songs are available on YouTube.

Lalitha Bhanu was conferred with the title "Ganabooshanam" and was presented with a Tambura (with an emblem of Swathi Tirunal) by Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer.[1]

Lalitha was married to Perumal Bhanu Bharadwaj. They had three children including two daughters and a son, Anand Bhanu Bharadwaj.

She died on 20 August 2020 at Chennai.[1]

• List of Malayalam songs sung by Ganabhooshanam N. Lalitha

• Lalitha Bhanu Interview on YouTube - in Malayalam language Amrita TV
• Anjana Sreedhara on YouTube - Her hit song from the film Ponkathir.
• Lalitha Bhanu sings at 83 years of age on YouTube - Meenakshi Memudam in Poorvikalyani raga.
• Carnatic concert on YouTube - (Duration 55:20) was probably performed sometime in the 1960s