Fanatics using religion to kill people: Yesudas

In a moving speech that touched the hearts of the audience, Yesudas recalled his humble beginnings when he did not even have Rs 5 to pay for his tuition fees.

"Religion is being used as a weapon and people are dying daily. I beg you to give up your fanatic mindset," urged legendary Carnatic singer K.J. Yesudas. Replying to felicitations by Advaita Foundation, Yesudas said there was only one God who was above religion, and He loved everyone without any discrimination. There were fanatic priests in every religion who preached that their religion was superior to the rest, he said and appealed to the people not to fall prey to such priests. "Fanaticism is the biggest threat to world peace," he said. He gave his own example of how a priest misled him when he was barely 7-year-old, but his father imbibed in him the love of all religions and taught him the essential oneness of all religions.

In a moving speech that touched the hearts of the audience, Yesudas recalled his humble beginnings when he did not even have Rs 5 to pay for his tuition fees. He credited all his success in life to his father who helped him reach this position.

After his thanksgiving speech, Yesudas presented a rendition of many kritis of Saint Thyagaraja, Purandara Dasa and also sang one composition each from Bible and Quran.

Also honoured on the occasion were Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology Director Dr C.N. Manjunath, former finance secretary S. Narayan and legendary offspinner EAS Prasanna.

Born January 10, 1940 at Fort Kochi to Augustine Joseph and Elizabeth Joseph, the child Yesudas started to sing almost as soon as he learnt to speak. His father was his first guru in music. At age seven, Yesudas won a gold medal at a local music competition. He was later trained under Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar till he became 34 years old. He has overall sung over 50,000 songs and his speciality is, he has combined both Carnatic and Hindustani style in almost all his classical songs. Music composer Salil Choudhury discovered Yesudas and brought him into playback singing. In Malayalam alone, he has sung more than 40,000 songs. Apart from Malayalam songs he has sung for Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tulu, Russian, Arabic, Latin and English films through his long career. He has won over 50 awards only for his playback singing.