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Bollywood Playback Singers- Sunidhi Chauhan

A while ago I had an idea to start a series featuring Bollywood playback singers. It's taken me a bit to get round to it, but here's the first one! :)

A playback singer is someone who records the music for films. In Bollywood, which is the Hindi language Indian movie industry, most actors don't sing (although some do) so singers provide the vocals for them in the films. Some of the most well-known Bollywood playback singers are sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik, Himesh Reshammiya, Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal. In this post I'm featuring Sunidhi Chauhan.

Sunidhi is from Delhi and began performing at local gatherings at a young age. She made her first start in the Bollywood music business aged around 12, when she was a co-vocalist on the song Ladki Deewani Ladki Deewana (something like "Girl Crazy, Boy Crazy" in English)  from the 1996 film Shashta. The other singers were father and son Udit and Aditya Narayan. She went on to win the reality show Meri Awaz Suno and became known for singing Ruki Ruki Si Zindagi from Mast (1999), for which she won a Filmfare award. She was also nominated for Filmfare again for the song Mehboob Mere from Fiza in 2000.

Sunidhi has been called "The Queen of Item Songs" due to recording mostly item songs. An item number is a song (and dance) in Indian films which doesn't have much to do with the main plot. An example would be Aa Khushi Se Khudkhusi Kar Le from Darling. 
 
Her singing credits include Dhoom Machale from Dhoom, Deedar De from Dus, I Wanna Make Love To You from Aitraaz, Aashiqi Mein from 36 China Town, Sheila Ki Jawani from Tees Maar Khan, Jawaan Hai Mohabbat from Fanney Khan and Vaddi Sharbhan from De De Pyar De. In 2010 she featured on the India Mix of Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias' single Heartbeat. In addition to singing, Sunidhi has been a judge on Indian reality music shows.

Now here are some of her songs. :)

Dhoom Machale from Dhoom (2004)

Sunidhi sang  Dhoom Machale from the 2004 film Dhoom (Blast in English). I featured this as a Weekly Music Video in 2013, along with Tata Young's Dhoom Dhoom (the English version of the song). Scroll down for the second video which features Sunidhi's vocals:


Sheila Ki Jawani from Tees Maar Khan (2010)

Sunidhi provided the vocals for Sheila Ki Jawani (Youth of Sheila/Young Sheila) from 2010's Tees Maar Khan. The video stars Katrina Kaif and I featured it in this Girls vs Boys- Bollywood post in 2014: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2014/09/girls-vs-boys-bollywood.html


Kamli from Dhoom:3 (2013)

Sunidhi teamed up with Katrina again for the song Kamli from Dhoom:3: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2015/02/weekly-music-video_18.html


Gela Gela Gela and I Wanna Make Love To You from Aitraaz

Back in 2015 I wrote a post called Bollywood Boxing Day! Two songs featured were Gela Gela and I Wanna Make Love To You from the thriller film Aitraaz: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2015/12/bollywood-boxing-day.html


Jo Dar Gaya Voh Mar Gaya from Darna Mana Hai

In my Bollywood Horror post for Hallowe'en 2018, I linked to the music video for the song Jo Dar Gar Voh Mar Gaya from the horror film Darna Mana Hai. Sunidhi sang the female vocals and the male ones are sung by Ninad Kamat and Naresh Kamath. Here's a direct link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXd4p0t6hIY


Mehbooba Mehbooba from Ajnabee (2001)

This is Mehbooba Mehbooba from the film Ajnabee ("Stranger"). It's a good thriller about two couples who do a "wife swap" and then a murder which takes place. I've seen it  few times. Ajnabee is actually based on the American film Consenting Adults but I haven't seen that.

Mehbooba Mehbooba is my fave song from the move. Sunidhi sings with Adnan Sami (who sang for Akshay Kumar's character Vikram), providing the vocals for Bipasha Basu's Sonia. I think Mehbooba translates as something like "Beloved". You can find a translation of the lyrics here: https://www.bollywoodlyrics.com/forums/topic/translation-for-song-mehbooba-mehbooba

Please note if you haven't seen the film that the scene in the video is towards the end, so may be a spoiler for you! :)

I can't post the video directly but you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq8ikMZSPDU


Aashiqui Mein Teri  and Aashiqui Mein- Remix from 36 China Town (2006)

And here is Aashiqui Mein Teri from 36 China Town which is about detective Chief Police Inspector Karan (played by Akshaye Khanna), investigating the murder of rich casino owner Sonia Chang (Isha Koppikar) at her mansion 36 China Town. I have seen this film but quite a few years ago now. It's actually a remae of the American comedy mystery film Once Upon a Crime, which itself is a remake of the 1960 Italian movie Crimen.

The male singer is Himmesh Reshammiya and it's one of my fave songs from the film. This is the original video:
 

 

And this is the Remix version:





Finally here's a video of Sunidhi performing Sheila Ka Jawani live at a concert in Hyderabad in 2016:




And check out her performance at this year's Umang 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6_jmLVP50k



To follow Sunidhi visit these links:


 
Update 12/4/25: Sunidhi now has an official YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sunidhichauhanofficial01 


I hope you enjoyed this look at a Bollywood playback singer. :) Who are your favourite singers?


Want more Bollywood? Check out these other posts from the first half of 2020:





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