Kochi, June 18: Popular poet and lyricist from Kerala, S Ramesan Nair passed away in Kochi on Friday at the age of 73. Nair, a cancer patient, had contracted COVID-19 earlier and tested negative two days ago. He was undergoing treatment at a private hospital.

Born on May 3, 1948, to late A Shadananan Thampi and late L Parameswari Amma at Kumarapuram in Kanyakumari, the lyricist is survived by his wife, P Rema, and son Manu Ramesan, who is a music director. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan and MoS MEA V Muraleedharan expressed grief over his death.

Nair penned about 700 Malayalam songs and over 2,000 devotional songs. He started writing songs for Malayalam films starting from the movie Pathamudayam, which was released in 1985.

Nair won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award for lifetime achievement in 2010 and the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award in 2018 for the collection of poems titled Gurupournami. He also worked as Sub-editor in the State Bhasha Institute, Kerala, and as a producer in All India Radio. He translated Tamil classics Tirukkural and Chilapathikaram into Malayalam.

He has dozens of Hindu devotional albums to his name. He was also noted for writing plays such as Sthreeparvam, Aalroopam, Sathabhishekam and Vikatavritham. Some of his popular songs included Neeyen Kinavo, O Priye, Oru Rajamalli Viriyunna Pole, Kiliye Kiliye, Ambadi Payyukal Meyum.

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