About

Shreya Ghoshal (born March 12, 1984 in Rawatbhata, Rajasthan, India) is an Indian playback singer. She performed several songs in Bollywood, regional films and also for Indian soaps like Kasturi. Besides Hindi, she has also sung songs in Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.

Shreya Ghoshal was born in a Bengali brahmin family. She grew up in Rawatbhata, a small town near Kota, Rajasthan. 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.

As a child she won the children's special episode of the Sa Re Ga Ma contest on Zee TV. Back then, the show was hosted by now-famous singer Sonu Niigaam. 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 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 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.