The voice that has enthralled generations and soothed a million souls, including Oscar winner A.R. Rahman! Legendary South Indian playback singer K.J. Yesudas celebrated his 70th birthday on Sunday.

As has been a practice on every birthday of his, the versatile singer, who is always dressed in a flowing white kurta and a white dhoti, paid obeisance with his family at the Kollur Mookambika temple near Bangalore on Sunday.

Born on January 10, 1940 in Fort Kochi as son of actor-singer Augustin Joseph and Elizabeth, Yesudas took early lessons from his father before encounters with leading singers and actors of those days. After completing schooling at St. Sebasitan High School at Palluruthi, he took music as his main subject, joining RLV Music College and later in the Government Music College in Thiruvananthapuram, from where he graduated with first rank.

In a singing career that began in 1961, he is the only singer who has bagged seven National Film Awards for best singer in the Indian film industry. With more than 40,000 film songs in several languages, including Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tulu, Malay, Russian, Arabic, Latin and English, in his kitty, Yesudas’ journey in the world of music continues.