ANURADHA PAUDWAL HINDI CINEMA SINGER BORN 1954 OCTOBER 27

ANURADHA PAUDWAL HINDI CINEMA SINGER  BORN 1954 OCTOBER 27

Anuradha Paudwal (born 27 October 1954) is an Indian playback singer who works in Bollywood.[2][3] She was awarded the Padma Shri,[4] India's fourth-highest civilian award, by the Government of India in 2017.[5] She is a recipient of the National Film Award and a four-time winner of the Filmfare Award.[

Personal life[edit source]

She was married to Arun Paudwal, a music composer and has a son named Aditya Paudwal and a daughter named Kavita Paudwal, who is also a singer.[8][9]

Career beginnings

Anuradha Paudwal is an Indian playback singer in Bollywood.She has sung songs in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, andShe studied at Xavier's College in Mumbai. She was married to the late Arun Paudwal, who worked with music director S. D. Burman as his assistant. Her singing career started in 1973 with the movie, Abhimaan, (starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan) in which she sang a Shloka (a Sanskrit verse).


 In the same year she also made her Marathi film debut with "Yashoda" (music by Datta Davjekar). In 1974, she brought out a record of Non-film Marathi songs or "bhav geeten" which became very popular.In 1976, she got her break as a playback singer in Hindi films with Kalicharan (starring Shatrughan Sinha and Reena Roy). Her first solo was in the movie, Aap Beati, (starring Hema Malini and Shashi Kapoor). Laxmikant-Pyarelal were the music-composer duo for that movie. She also occasionally sang songs for composers Rajesh Roshan (Des Pardes), Jaidev (Dooriyan, Laila Majnu), Kalyanji Anandji (Kalaakar, Vidhaata), and Usha Khanna (Souten, Sajan Bina Suhagan).

Anuradha apparently never received any formal training in classical music, stating in an interview, "I have not received any formal training in classical music. I have tried many times, but it has never worked out. I learnt a little here and a little there, but ultimately, I just practiced for many hours listening to Lataji".Anuradha gained recognition with her popular numbers for the movie, Hero, for composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal. Her collaboration with Laxmikant-Pyarelal produced more success with songs for Meri Jung ("O Mere Kwabon Ke"), Batwara ("Thaare Vaaste Re Dola-Tu Maaro Kaun Lage"), Nagina and many more.Ram Lakhan saw Laxmikant-Pyarelal giving three major hit songs to Anuradha. Their association ended with Tezaab where she sang two good numbers for them - 

"Kehdo Ki Tum" and "Hum Tumko Dilbar Kyon Maane".Following this she collaborated with movie producer, Gulshan Kumar, and began a success streak with the movies, Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka, Tezaab, Aashiqui and Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin. She along with Gulshan Kumar were instrumental in getting many unknown playback singers to the fore, including Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Abhijeet, Sonu Nigam. New Music directors, including her husband Arun Paudwal, were introduced to the music world. Nadeem-Shravan, Anu Malik, Anand-Milind, Nikhil Vinay and Amar Utpal all collaborated with T-Series (Gulshan Kumar's music label) and started a new era of melody in Bollywood. Most of her duets have been with Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu, Mohammed Aziz. She sang some songs with Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi and also with her female co-singers; Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Alka Yagnik, Kavita Krishnamurthy and Sadhana Sargam. 


Her other notable songs were also for the famous duo Shiv-Hari, for the movie "Sahebaan". She has also sung for R.D. Burman in her initial days and actually convinced him to make songs for Gulshan Kumar's label in his last days and the song "Aja Meri Jaan" set to one of the background score of R.D.Burman from Saagar is still popular. She also sang beautiful duets with her co-singers from south, notably S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and K. J. Yesudas.Anuradha believed to have dubbed the songs of Alka Yagnik in the film "Dil". This also caused rifts between Anand-Milind and Alka Yagnik, thereby causing them to not collaborate for 2 years. Later in 1998, Anuradha Paudwal dubbed the songs of Alka Yagnik once again for the film Itihaas, this time under the music direction of Dilip Sen-Sameer Sen. Alka Yagnik protested, to which the music company, T-Series was forced to include both versions of the same song, one in the voice of Alka Yagnik and the other in the voice of Anuradha Paudwal.

 She went to dub Lata Mangeshkar's song in "Radha Ka Sangam" citing that her voice suited the heroine better. Anu Malik, a smaller name then, who had composed the soundtrack, protested against this moAt her peak, Anuradha announced that henceforth she would sing exclusively for "T-Series", and concentrated on devotional songs and "cover-version" albums. T-Series used her fame to good effect in numerous Bhajan and promotional videos. She was the first playback singer whose face featured on music covers more than the film's actors. She sang for T-series for some time and then went into a sabbatical. 

After about five years, she restarted her playback career. She sang a few hit songs for her old music directors but the reception for her comeback was mild.Although Anuradha has significantly cutback in singing for films, she has continued on with her popularity for singing devotional songs and creating devotional albums, which remains her forte. She has collaborated with Pandit Jasraj on his "Geet Govind" & on many devotional albums with Anup Jalota.Anuradha sang in a number of Marathi movies including the memorable "Disate Majalaa", "Raja Lalakaari", and "Kaalyaa Maatita Maatitaa". Most of these movies had music by the duo of Anil-Arun, Arun being her husband, who collaborated with Anil Mohile to form a pair.


She sang her way through the 70s and 80s, before quitting playback for Bollywood films at her peak in the 90s, and Anuradha Paudwal says she always wanted to leave the game when on the top.

Anuradha first sang a shloka in the 1973 Abhimaan, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya, following up with films like Kalicharan, Aap Beati and the blockbuster, Hero.

It was, however, in the 90s where the 64-year-old singer came up with consecutive hits in Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahi and Saajan.
When asked why did she want to leave at her peak, the singer added, “Because you should be missed.”

Her decision to quit singing for films came as a surprise for many but Anuradha says nobody was privy to her idea.

“Nobody knew. I didn’t discuss it with anyone. It was only between me and my God. I’d rather be missed than people say ‘why is she singing,’“ she says.

She, however, did reach a stage in her career where after having several highs with films like Ek Duje Ke Liye and Karz, she saw a dry run post Hero.

“There was a big lull of four years after Hero. I faced that. There were hardly any films. They were all multi starrers,” Anuradha says.

The singer then gradually moved to singing devotional songs. Anuradha says she had to initially face difficulty even for singing devotional tracks.

“You will be surprised, that time when I had gone to a couple of companies, I said I want to sing bhajans but they said no there is no market for your bhajan. And see today. The whole scenario has changed.

“They said ‘no one wants to listen to bhajans from you.’ They wanted me to sing only ghazals. Now that I look back, it has been a very rich journey.”

The veteran singer feels she can’t fit into the music scene of today, “there is jazz, pop, rock kind of music which I can’t sing”. She doesn’t have any disdain for it except for a word of caution for contemporary singers.

“I feel bad when singers don’t try to retain their identity. Everybody sounds the same. You can’t figure out. Songs are composed only on those four notes.

I feel very sad for the singers because we got different songs to sing, we had our voice and the music directors tried to make use of that quality,” she felt.

Anuradha says her contemporaries had distinct voice which separated all of them.

“Kavita Krishnamurthy sounded like her, I sounded like myself and Alka (Yagnik) had her own voice. It never happened that everybody was in the same slot and sounded the same, which is the case today. I feel sad for the singers because it is difficult to build an identity.”

The National Award winning singer has been conferred with Padma Shri. The win for Paudwal comes on the heels of her being conferred with honorary D Litt degree by the DY Patil University.

Apart from this, the singer will be felicitated by Chennamneni Vidhya Sagar, Maharashtra Governor on February 18 for outstanding contribution in the field of music and social service.