Anuradha Paudwal

She was born in Karwar in 1954 to a Konkani family and grew up in Bombay; she had no formal training until her marriage to the music arranger Arun Paudwal, who worked with S.D. Burman. Her first recording was a Sanskrit shloka in Abhimaan (1973); through the 1970s and early 1980s she sang for Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Rajesh Roshan and Kalyanji-Anandji, mostly second songs — Bansi Bajao in Judaai, Saat Saheliyan in Vidhaata — and the National Award-winning Marathi song for Bhairavi (1987).

Her partnership with Gulshan Kumar's T-Series changed everything. Devotional cassettes made her a household voice; Hero (1983) and then Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin (1991), Sadak (1991), Beta (1992) and Dil (1990) made her the leading female playback singer of the early 1990s, with Filmfare Awards for Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin and Beta. For a period she sang only for T-Series, which limited her film work; after Gulshan Kumar's murder in 1997 and her husband's death in 1991 she withdrew largely into devotional music.

She received the Padma Shri in 2017. Her daughter Kavita Paudwal also sings; her son Aditya died in 2020. She continues to record devotional music and performs occasionally.

Anuradha Paudwal's voice is sweet, clear and slightly reedy, with a devotional steadiness and a touch of sob that Nadeem-Shravan used for the heartbroken heroine of the Aashiqui years. It lacks the range of Asha or the finish of Lata, and it did not need them: the cassette era wanted a voice that sounded sincere at any volume on any machine, and hers did.