Anuradha Paudwal

Some Lesser Known Facts About Anuradha Paudwal

• She was born in a Konkani family in Karwar, Uttara Kannada, Karnataka. However, she was brought up in Mumbai.

• Anuradha says that her interest in music was triggered off by a Lataji song that she had heard on the radio.

• When she was in 4th standard, she dreamt of hearing Lataji’s voice live.

• In an interview, she revealed that she was born with a hoarse voice.

• In her childhood, she fell seriously ill with a severe attack of pneumonia. She lost her voice almost completely and got bed-ridden for 40 days. In those 40 days, she listened to just one voice; Lataji’s.

• When Anuradha was admitted to the hospital, one of her uncles gifted her a recording of Bhagwad Geeta in the voice of Lataji, and when she recovered, her voice had changed completely. After that, she started moulding her voice.

• Lata Mangeshkar is no less than a God to Anuradha Paudwal as she credits all her successes to her. She says, “I learnt under several gurus. But her voice has remained my inspiration. It’s like an institution.”

• Anuradha actively participated in her school and college functions and had won several awards. The very first award that she won was for one of Lataji’s Meera bhajans.

• At one such school function, due to her hoarse voice, she was disqualified with the judges’ remark, “Voice unfit for Sugam Sangeet.”

• When she was in her teenage, she fell in love with Arun (a Music Composer). Initially, her father didn’t approve of their marriage because of Arun’s connection with the film industry. Her father believed that girls from respectable families didn’t become a part of show business.

• When she got married to Arun, she was 17 and Arun was 27.

• Arun always encouraged her to sing. In fact, he became her close mentor and critic as well.

• Once, Arun brought her to one of Lataji’s (Lata Mangeshkar) recordings. Anuradha was listening so carefully that she could sing the song live on ‘Yuva Vani,’ a very popular Marathi programme; heard by a lot of people. Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Hridaynath Mangeshkar, and several top composers called the radio station to find out who’d been singing. It took them a while to figure out that it was Alka Nadakarni (maiden name of Anuradha Paudwal). They all offered to launch Anuradha Paudwal, but at that time she was not temperamentally inclined.

• It was the legendary musician, SD Burman, who was the first to offer her a song (actually, a Shiva Shloka) in the 1973 Hindi film, Abhiman (starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri).

• When Abhiman was released, about 25 to 30 of her family members, friends and neighbours went to to the Plaza Theatre just to see Anuradha’s name in the credits.

• Anuradha Paudwal’s 1st solo was in the film, Aap Beati, (starring Shashi Kapoor and Hema Malini).

• Anuradha Paudwal won her first major film award for the song “Mera Man Baje Mridang….” from the film Utsav (1984). She was surprised with the award as she had been hoping to win for Hero’s ‘Tu Mera Janoo Hai….’

• When she sang the song, ‘Tu Mera Janoo Hai….’ in Subhash Ghai’s film Hero (starring Jackie Shroff and Meenakshi Seshadri), it became a chartbuster. Initially, it was Lataji’s song, however, due to some reasons, the song went to Anuradha Paudwal.

• In most of the Subhash Ghai‘s films, Anuradha Paudwal was the signatory singer. She also sang a Gayatri Mantra which even today is a part of Mukta Arts emblem.

• In the mid-1980s, Anuradha Paudwal recorded 23 songs with Nadeem-Shravan. Later, the songs were used in three films directed by Mahesh Bhatt– Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin and Sadak.

• In the 1990s, she became the voice of Madhuri Dixit, who was on the verge of becoming a superstar. Remember “Bahut Pyaar Karte Hain Tumko Sanam”, the song just refused to go out of the music charts.

• With her songs in the films- Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin, and Sadak, she rose to the pinnacle of her singing career. However, at the same time, she was going through a personal low as in the year 1983, she lost a daughter who was just one month old. Her husband, Arun, was also very ill. She became mentally fatigued. In the early 1990s, she started retreating from the film industry and announced to sing only for T-Series and took to singing devotionals. This stand benefited Alka Yagnik who just zoomed to the top. The choice of devotional over material was due to her deep interest in spirituality.

• She had developed a great bonding with the T-Series Mogul Gulshan Kumar. However, when he was shot dead in August 1997, her attitude to success changed. She says, “Today, when I have a hit, it feels nice, but that’s it.”

• After her husband, Arun’s death, her son, Aditya, became one of the youngest music composers in the film industry. Her daughter, Kavita Paudwal, is also a playback singer.

• Anuradha has a Foundation named ‘Suryauday’ in the memory of her late husband, Arun.

• In an interview, she revealed that she apparently never received any formal training in classical music. She said, “I just practised for many hours listening to Lataji.”

• Along with Gulshan Kumar, Anuradha Paudwal was instrumental in getting several unknown playback singers to the fore, including Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu, Sonu Nigam, Abhijeet, etc.

• She has sung in Kannada, Marwari, Marathi, Sanskrit, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, among other languages. Many of her songs went on to be chartbusters.

• When she entered the film industry, everybody started predicting that she would replace Lata Mangeshkar. Even the veteran composer O P Nayyar commented,
  

  Lata is finished, Anuradha has replaced her.” Being a content person, she neither expected nor aspired for the moon. She says, “I was highly satisfied with what I received from the audience and industry. I felt that it is always better to retire when on the pinnacle Nahi To Log Darwaza Dikha Dete Hain (otherwise you are shown the door).”

• In an interview, she revealed that she has a desire to record poetries and the works of Shankaracharya.