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Happy Birthday Sunidhi Chauhan: The 1999 Movie Mast by Ram Gopal Verma starring Urmila and Aftab Shivdasani had a very catchy song Ruki Ruki Si Zindagi by Sonu Nigam and a young girl who won the Filmfare RD Burman Award for new music talent and was also nominated for best female playback singer. What an honour, considering that Asha Bhosle ji herself had songs in the movie and so had another mellifluous singer Sadhna Sargam.
The young girl was none other than Sunidhi Chauhan who was just 16. However success was nothing new to her and she had experienced it even earlier as a child. When she was just 4, she used to sing in local gatherings and her homemaker mother, convinced of her talent, thought of a music career for her. Her name was Nidhi and she sang in Tabassum’s show. Tabassum introduced Nidhi to legendary music director Kalyanji who changed her name to Sunidhi as he felt the name would be lucky for her.
While Mast gave her stardom at 16, she had sung for movies even earlier at 12. It was for the movie Shastra, in which the music director was Aadesh Shrivastava. He had seen her perform at Filmfare awards and impressed by her, gave her a break. Sunidhi also won Lata Mangeshkar award for best singer in the very 1st musical show on TV “Meri Aawaz Suno”.
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A reason for success is always realizing one’s limitations and recognising the need for training. Hats off to Sunidhi for realizing her need for formal training for which she went to the legendary trainer, Goutam Mukherkee, the son-in-law of none other than Hemant Kumar. Thereafter Mast and Ruki Ruki Si Zindagi happened and as Sunidhi herself says, “the rest is history”.