Kavita Krishnamurti

Sharada Krishnamurthy, popularly known as Kavita Krishnamurthy or Kavita Subramaniam, is an Indian playback and classical singer.

She has recorded 50,000 songs in 45 various Indian languages including Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, Telugu, Odia, Marathi, English, Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Nepali, Assamese, Konkani, Punjabi and other languages.

Her performance as a singer in the film 1942: A Love Story, composed by R. D. Burman, won her much popular acclaim.

With a string of hits from 1942: A Love Story, Yaraana, Agni Sakshi, Bhairavi, and Khamoshi, Kavita established herself as a leading female playback singer, alongside Alka Yagnik.

The song was entitled Aayega Aanewala (a remake of Mahal's (1949) superhit song sung by Lata Mangeshkar) and was picturised on Shabana Azmi.

Laxmikant gave her an opportunity to work as a dubbing artist.

Initially, she recorded songs and cut demos of songs intended for singers like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle.

She won several medals participating in the Inter-Ministry Classical Competition in New Delhi in the mid-1960s.

During her college days at St. Xavier College, Mumbai, she got an opportunity to record a song in the Bengali film Shriman Prithviraj in 1971 with Lata Mangeshkar as co-singer under the auspices of the music composer and singer Hemant Kumar.

Although the young Sharada aspired to work in Indian Foreign Services, she moved to Bombay when she was 14 to try her luck as a playback singer in the Hindi film industry.

She is an alumnus of St. Xavier's College, Bombay from where she did her BA Honors Economics.

She was very active in St. Xavier's music group.

During the annual college festival (Malhar), she met Ranu Mukherjee, the daughter of Hemant Kumar.

Ranu took the initiative of reintroducing Kavita to her father, who began using her as a singer during his live performances.

At one such performance, playback singer Manna Dey spotted her and employed her to sing advertisement jingles.

Through her aunt's contacts, she met Jaya Chakravarthy, the mother of actress Hema Malini, who later introduced Kavita to the music director Laxmikant (one of the composer duo Laxmikant–Pyarelal) in late 1976.

A recent interview covers a pretty good summary of her musical journey.

She recorded her first song under Vilayat Khan's composition in Kadambari (1976).

In 1978, she first sang the Kannada song "Ondanondu kaaladaga" in the film Ondanondu Kaladalli (Once upon a time) directed by Girish Karnad.

The song was penned by the Jnanpit awardee Chandrashekhara Kambara and the music by Bhaskar Chandavarkar.

Being the only song in the entire movie, "Ondanondu kaladaga" with its folk touch, became a hit and earned fame for Kavita Krishnamurti.

Then she went on to sing many Kannada-language songs.

In 1980, she sang "Kaahe Ko Byaahi" in Maang Bharo Sajana (1980), which featured her singing in her own voice, although the song was dropped from the final cut of the film.

In 1985, her career took off with her first major hit, "Tumse Milkar Na Jaane Kyon" from the Hindi film Pyaar Jhukta Nahin (1985) - Tumse milkar.

Na Jaane kyun.

Following the success of the song, it opened up opportunities beyond the Laxmikant–Pyarelal camp.

However, "Hawa Hawaii" and "Karte Hain Hum Pyaar Mr. India Se", two popular songs from the equally popular movie Mr. India (1986) - Karte Hain Hum Pyaar Mr. India se, proved to be a turning point in her career.

The songs were composed by music composers Laxmikant-Pyarelal, the latter being a duet with Kishore Kumar and lip-synced on screen by an actress Sridevi.

Her collaboration with Laxmikant-Pyarelal produced several hits.

The 1990s thrust Kavita into being known as one of the leading female playback singers.

She went on to work with several music directors of the 1990s Hindi films, such as Bappi Lahiri, Anand–Milind, A. R. Rahman, Rajesh Roshan, Raamlaxman, Ismail Darbar, Himesh Reshammiya, Aadesh Shrivastava, Nadeem-Shravan, Jatin–Lalit, Viju Shah and Anu Malik.

Her work with A. R. Rahman and Ismail Darbar remain some of the most critically acclaimed renditions of the last two decades.

During her stint as a playback singer, she sang duets with the leading male singers of her time.

She is the recipient of four Filmfare Best Female Playback Singer Awards (winning consecutively during 1995–1997), and the Padmashri which she received in 2005.

In 1999, she married noted violinist L. Subramaniam and resides in Bengaluru.

Born as Sharada into a Tamil Iyer family in New Delhi to T. S. Krishnamurthy, an employee of the Education Ministry.

She began her musical training at the insistence of her aunt, Protima Bhattacharya who enrolled her to train under Surama Basu, where she was taught Rabindra Sangeet.

She began her formal training in Hindustani classical music under the guidance of Balram Puri, a classical singer.

At the age of eight, Kavita won a gold medal at a music competition.

She was awarded a Doctorate (Honoris Causa) for her contributions to Indian music by Bangalore-based Jain University in 2015.