Chutney icon Anand Yankarran dies
(Trinidad Guardian) Tributes poured in on Tuesday, as the news of the death local Chutney singer, Anand Yankarran was announced.
Yankarran, 51, was hailed by many as an icon in the local music industry.
According to his wife, Vidya, Yankarran passed away at the Couva District Health Facility around 6.45am yesterday after suffering from a heart attack.
In an interview with the T&T Guardian yesterday, Vidya said Yankarran was in good spirits minutes before his death. Yankarran had suffered from kidney failure for a number of years and was on dialysis.
“We woke and I tested his blood pressure and sugar (levels) and all the readings were good,” she said. “We went back to lie down and a little while after he started to gasp for breath. I called the ambulance and tried to resuscitate him myself, but when they took him to the hospital he had passed away.”
Vidya said she and Yankarran, who were together for the past 17 years, enjoyed themselves with friends on Sunday as they celebrated the start of the New Year.
The two met at a Mother’s Day concert in the US in 2000.
Of their romance, she said: “It just happened... I had known about his work before and when we met things just fell into place.”
They married and lived together in the US for 14 years before returning to Trinidad.
Yankarran enjoyed a vibrant music career while in the US and also performed in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, England and Canada.
The couple settled in Exchange Development, Couva, on their return, and Yankarran would record and release his last Chutney hit ‘Pak Pak’ in 2013 and perform in the 2014 Chutney Soca Monarch.
Vidya said Yankarran had no plans to return to the stage as he retired at age 50.
She described Yankarran as a very kind, loving person. “He was softhearted loved to help people; anything he could do for someone in need made him so happy.”