Famous playback singer and Padma awardee SP Balasubrahmanyam, popular as SPB or Balu in the movie world and who recorded over 40,000 songs in 16 languages over a period of five decades, died on Friday afternoon in a Chennai hospital.
The singer’s body was taken to his residence after embalming for public homage in the evening. A large number of people gathered at his residence here to have a last glimpse of the singer and pay their respects. The last rites will be held on Saturday at his farmhouse at Thamaraipakkam near Chennai.
SP Charan, SPB’s son, has now issued a video on his social media handle slamming rumours surrounding the payment of hospital bills where his father breathed his last. SP Charan says, “It is unfortunate that there are rumours going around about MGM hospital and payments regarding my dad’s care, bills and all that technical stuff. We were in the hospital from August 5. My father passed away on September 25. There are rumours around the amount of bill that was charged. That we had paid something and there was a balance and that we had requested the Tamil Nadu government but they did not reciprocate and I had to gone to Vice President of India and they had responded instantaneously. Also that unless we had paid the balance amount, the hospital was not releasing my dad for the last rituals. Let me just say that this all a big hogwash. I don’t know why people do this without consulting people. They don’t seem to realise how offensive and hurting this is to people associated with this issue.”
He adds, “These people cannot be fans of SPB. SPB would not do something like this. I’d like to say that I forgive this person but he needs to grow up and do the right thing. He has no base in spreading such rumours. He has no knowledge what the treatment was, how much the bills were and who paid what. Me and the hospital will do a press release to muff all the rumours. It is so simple to post things online and mess things up for people.”
“We as a family are grateful for everything MGM Healthcare Chennai has done for us, for my father as a patient and for us as a family who were attending to my father,” SP Charan concludes.
