The second Manorama Hortus came to a close on Sunday with a musical night in honour of the legendary K J Yesudas. Dada Saheb Phalke winner Mohanlal ushered the great singer into the Hall of Fame created by Malayala Manorama. 

With Yesudas and wife Prabha joining live from their home in America, the induction into the Hall of Fame was symbolically done with Mohanlal handing over the Hall of Fame memento to the great man's son and playback singer Vijay Yesudas. "Nothing could be more fitting than having Yesudas as the first name inscribed on the walls of the Hall," Mohanlal said. "My career would have been incomplete without me lip-syncing his songs," Mohanlal said. He said that two of the eight times Yesudas won a national award, it was for songs in  films produced by him and enacted on screen by him ('Unnikale Oru Katha Parayam' and 'Bharathan').

"Whenever I moved my lips to his songs, my only concern was that the songs should not be sullied by my performance," he said. Mohanlal also announced the dates of Manorama Hortus 2026: December 3 to 6.

The entire evening was structured around a festival of Yesudas songs: 'Oru Swaram Maathram: An Evening in Honour of Yesudas'. 

Yesudas witnessed the event live from his American home like a grandfatherly white-bearded God. Yesudas could be occasionally seen on the big screen at the back of the stage. He was seated in a brown upholstered sofa with curling side rests, and was in his trademark white kurta with its sleeves casually rolled up, and sporting flowing milky white hair and beard. And the singers led by Vijay Yesudas and musicians led by Stephen Devassy were also in whites, like they were his angels. 

The event was scripted in such a way that people associated with the great man were invited on stage in between the songs. The wives of Johnson and Raveendran, two music directors who had done wonders with Yesudas, were among them. Music directors Sarath, Bijibal and Deepak Dev also graced the stage.