A teary farewell: KK cremated in Mumbai in presence of family & friends; colleagues Shreya Ghoshal, Hariharan, Javed Akhtar pay tribute

Popular playback singer, Krishnakumar Kunnath, fondly known as KK by legions of fans, was cremated on Thursday afternoon at the Versova Hindu Cemetry in Mumbai's Andheri. The singer died on Tuesday night moments after performing live at the Nazrul Manch auditorium in Kolkata.

His mortal remains were brought to his home from the hospital on June 2. The 53-year-old singer’s last rites were performed by his son in presence of his wife Jyothi and other relatives.

KK's last rites took place around 1 pm before which many relatives and colleagues paid their last respects to the singer at his residence in Park Plaza Andheri.

Prominent personalities from the music industry such as Javed Akhtar, Hariharan, Shankar Mahadevan, Shreya Ghoshal, Alka Yagnik, Javed Ali, Sunidhi Chauhan, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, and many others came to bid KK goodbye.

Following a strenuous performance at the Nazrul Manch auditorium, KK complained of discomfort and was rushed to the CMRI hospital around 10 pm. However, he could not be saved. According to his post-mortem, the singer died of a massive cardiac arrest and it ruled out unnatural death which was reported earlier.

While celebrities and fans across the country paid tributes, KK also received a gun salute at Rabindra Sadan in Kolkata on Wednesday. The tribute ceremony was attended by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the singer’s family. Following the tribute, his mortal remains were taken to the airport via a green corridor and flown to Mumbai.

The singer who shot to fame with numerous film songs and solo albums was among the few original voices in the music industry. KK has lent his mellifluous voice to many hit Bollywood songs such as ‘Ankhon Main Teri’ from ‘Om Shanti Om’, ‘Tu Hi Meri Shab’ from ‘Gangster’, ‘Khuda Jaane’ in ‘Bachna Ae Hasino’ and more. His most notable song in Hindi has been ‘Tadap Tadap’ from ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’.

Apart from Hindi, the singer has several chartbusters in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, and Bengali. KK had also lent his voice to hit Tamil tracks such as ‘Appadi Podu’ and ‘Uyirin Uyire’. KK is Malayali, however, he has only sung only one Malayalam song (‘Rahasyamayi’ in the Prithiviraj starrer ‘Puthiya Mugham’) in his career.