Sunidhi Chauhan

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Birth name Nidhi Chauhan
Nationality Inde
Birth 14 august 1983 (41 years)

Sunidhi Chauhan (सुनिधि चौहान) (born Nidhi Chauhan, 14 August 1983) is one of the most popular Indian playback singers and performers today, best known for her Punjabi songs and Hindi film songs in Bollywood. She has also recorded songs in several other Indian languages, such as; Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Malayalam, Oriya, Bengali, Assamese, Nepali, Urdu and English, making her one of the most recorded voices in India today with over 3000 studio recordings. Chauhan made her International debut with the song Heartbeat (Indian Mix), a collaboration with Enrique Iglesias. She has been awarded with prestigious national awards on several occasions and has established herself as the strongest live performer and singer in India to date. In 2013, Chauhan also made it to the list of Asia's 50 sexiest Women.

Legendary Lata Mangeshkar stated that Chauhan is Numero Uno singer of this generation ahead of her contemporaries.

Award winning composer and singer Shankar Mahadevan has stated on many occasions that Chauhan is the best female singer live-performer in India today.

She is credited for being a game changer and proved to be the coming of age of strong female singing

Chauhan began to sing at the age of four and was discovered by a local TV anchor. She won recognition through a televised singing contest, Meri Awaz Suno, which she won, and made her entrance into playback singing with the Hindi film Shastra at the age of 13.

Her breakthrough was Ram Gopal Varma's film Mast, in which she sang the hit song "Ruki Ruki Si Zindagi." She has been nominated for fourteen Filmfare Awards, winning it on two occasions, as well as a Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent. She has won two Star Screen Awards, two IIFA Awards and one Zee Cine Award.

She started her singing career as a child, giving her first performance at the age of four, in a local temple in Delhi. She did her early studies in Greenway modern School, Dilshad Garden in Delhi. Thereafter, she began to participate in, and sing for, competitions and local gatherings. When the famous stage and TV anchor Tabassum spotted her talent, she made her sing live in her show Tabassum Hit Parade and asked her family to shift to Mumbai. Tabassum then introduced her to Kalyanji and Anandji Bhai. Her family shifted to Mumbai in a bid to further develop the young singer's skills, and Chauhan became the lead singer in Kalyanji's 'Little Wonders' troupe.

Recognition first met her in 1996, through the music show Meri Aawaz Suno – the first such televised contest in India – which was broadcast through the Indian national television channel, Doordarshan. She won the competition and won the top prize of recording an album, Aira Ghaira Nathu Khaira, with HMV.

Unluckily for Chauhan, Aira Ghaira Nathu Khaira was promoted as a children's album and failed to get the recognition it deserved. In 2002, Chauhan observed this in an interview: "My first song and the contest did not help me much. Nothing happened for a while. But by then, I had made up my mind that I will pursue singing as a career."

Chauhan stepped into the world of playback singing with the 1996 Bollywood film, Shastra, after Aadesh Srivastava asked her to lend her voice to the song "Larki Deewaani Dekho, Ladka Deewaana." She followed it with work in films like Gang, Veergati, Dahek, Bade Dilwala, Raja Ki Aayegi Baaraat and Samar. By the age of nineteen, Chauhan had lent her voice to over 350 songs.

Biography

Chauhan was born in Delhi. She did her schooling at Blooming Buds Public School Gonda Road Balrampur, UP. Her father is a minor theatre personality who pushed her into the music industry from a young age. She has a younger sister, Suneha.

Chauhan attributes her success to her parents and Indian singer Sonu Nigam. She has cited Sadma (1983) as her favourite film; gymnastics and cricket as her favourite sports; and Akshaye Khanna and Madhuri Dixit as her favourite actors. Chauhan also loves western music and cites Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson as her inspirations. She has noted that one of her ambitions is to achieve global fame like they did. She is known for her admiration of international divas Celine Dion and Whitney Houston.

After entering the film industry, Chauhan upgraded her wardrobe and lost twelve kilos by jogging and working out. In an early interview, she revealed a "secret dream" of seeing herself as a Bollywood actress, saying, "I have many acting offers too, but I don't want to rush it. Frankly, I would like to do just one or two films to fulfill that secret dream of seeing myself as an actress. But my life is singing and my aim is to keep singing better."

In 2002, at the age of 18, Chauhan married director and choreographer Bobby Khan after working on the music video for "Pehla Nasha." It was reported that the couple married in a secretly arranged ceremony, attended only by very close friends and vigilantly watched over by security.

Chauhan was initially happy with the marriage. In an interview, she said : "My in-laws don't make me feel I am 'married'. I don't feel I have stepped into a new house. I am so comfortable. And Bobby is a darling. I am very, very happy."

On the downside, the marriage caused a rift between the young singer and her parents, who considered the union unsuitable and consequently disowned her. However, Chauhan and Khan separated a year later, bringing about a reconciliation between the estranged parents and daughter. Chauhan, who lived with mentor, actor and TV anchor, Annu Kapoor and his wife Arunita during the separation, filed for divorce the same year, citing that she had realised she and Khan "wanted different things from life."

On 24 April 2012, Chauhan married childhood friend and music composer Hitesh Sonik at a low profile wedding ceremony in Mumbai, but the reception the couple threw saw some colleagues from the industry in attendance. Pankaj Kapur, Supriya Pathak, Farah Khan, Vishal Dadlani, Asha Bhosle, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Alka Yagnik, Konkona Sen Sharma were spotted at the reception.