Ilaiyarajaa loses his key team member of four decades

70-year-old Purushottaman who was part of maestro Ilaiyarajaa's troupe from his debut film ' Annakkili' released in April 1976 passed away at Chennai. This old-timer of Rajaa's musical team was suffering from blood cancer and has two of his sons working with the legend presently. Having worked with other big names like K V Mahadevan, M S Viswanathan and Shankar-Ganesh in Tamil cinema, Purushottaman was also seen onscreen in a film of Bharatirajaa way back in 1980.

Arunmozhi, a flautist and a singer from the music director's troupe, as reported in a Tamil website has recollected the high position which Purushottaman enjoyed with Ilaiyarajaa. He said that the former was probably the only one who was openly praised and described as a hard-working type by the iconic composer during a musical function at Dubai. This was because it was evident that Rajaa has not shared much about his fellow musicians in any forum, Arun added.

With Ilaiyarajaa recently completing a record of composing music for 1000 films and having performed in more than 20000 concerts all over the world, it must have been the tireless support from dedicated fellow travellers like Purushottaman who has now decided to take a different journey to the unknown.