Shreya- My aim is to give 200 % - Page 2

Shreya Ghoshal was born in a Bengali family. She grew up in Rawatbhata, a small town near Kota, Rajasthan. She belongs to a highly academic family. Her father works in Bhabha Atomic Research Center as a nuclear power plant engineer for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India while her mother is a post-graduate literature student.

From the age of four Ghoshal accompanied her mother on the harmonium. Her parents enrolled her for formal training in Hindustani classical music in Kota with Maheshchandra Sharma.^[1]

As a child she won the children's special episode of the Sa Re Ga Ma (now Sa Re Ga Ma Pa) contest on Zee TV. Back then, the show was hosted by now-famous singer Sonu Nigam. Kalyanji who also judged the competition, convinced her parents to move to Mumbai.She trained with him for 18 months and continued her classical music training with Mukta Bhide in Mumbai.

She studied at Atomic Energy Central Schools (AECS) at Rawatbhata and Anushaktinagar (Mumbai). For Graduation she had enrolled herself at SIES College in their Arts Stream.

She caught the attention of film director Sanjay Leela Bhansali when she participated in Sa Re Ga Ma Pa for a second time, this time competing against adults. In 2000, He offered her the opportunity to be the voice of Paro, the lead female character of his film Devdas, who was to be portrayed by Aishwarya Rai. Shreya sang five songs under the music direction of Ismail Darbar in the film. Moviegoers from across the world heard Ghoshal's singing voice pictured on Aishwarya Rai, and she quickly became one of the top female playback singers in Bollywood, alongside Alka Yagnik, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sadhana Sargam and Kavita Krishnamurthy. This song earned her the Filmfare Award for best singer that year, as well as the R D Burman award, given to upcoming talents in music at the same award ceremony.

Since Devdas, she went on to sing for many other actresses under the baton of various music directors, including A.R.Rahman, Anu Malik, Himesh Reshammiya, Mani Sharma, M. M. Keeravani, Nadeem-Shravan, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Pritam, Vishal-Shekhar, Hamsalekha, Mano Murthy, Gurukiran, Ilayaraja, Yuvan Shankar Raja and Harris Jayaraj. She has won many awards both in north and south film industries. She has also received many accolades for the song 'Mere Dholna' from Bhool Bhulaiyaa.

Today Ghoshal is an established industry singer and has recorded in various regional languages, including Hindi,Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, Gujarati, Meitei, Marathi, and Bhojpuri. She also appeared as a judge in the singing show Amul Star Voice Of India Chhote Ustaad. She also sang the title songs of many Indian Television serials.

Ghosal has completed her college education, and is planning to pursue her MA in literature. She enjoys Symphony and instrumental in western music and her favourite group is ABBA. But Indian music is definitely her soul. Her voice has a texture that suits romantic songs and she can project voice very well (a fine example is "Jaadu Hai Nasha Hai " from Jism). Apart from Devdas, she has done songs for Jism, Saaya, Inteha, Out of Control, Khakee, Munnabhai MBBS, Dhoom, Kuchh Kaha Aapne, Armaan, Desh Devi, Tujhe Meri Kasam, LOC Kargil, Aetbaar,Krishh, Police Force, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Guru, Big B, Sagar alias Jacky Reloaded to the more recent ones like Blue, Kurbaan, Ghajini, Rab ne bana di jodi, 3 idiots etc. She is the only playback singer to have been nominated in 4 out of the 5 nominations for the best playback singer for her songs in 2007 in IIFA 2008. She won the best female playback singer Filmfare award 2009 and IIFA 2009 for her performance in Pritam's song "Teri Ore" from Singh is Kinng.She is only singer to get three national awards at the age of 25 in the Hindi film industry. Her latest song in Malayalam "Anuraga Vilochananayi" from the movie "Neelathamara" is a super hit^.