Shreya Ghoshal was born on 12th March 1984 in Berhampore, West Bengal, India, to Bengali parents, Sh. Bishwajit Ghoshal and Smt. Sarmistha Ghoshal. She spent her first three months of her life in her birthplace in West Bengal, then she moved to a place called Rawatbhata near Kota, Rajasthan, where her father, who is an Electronics Engineer, was posted. She has spent first thirteen years of formative part of her life there and completed her schooling up to Eighth Standard, in Atomic Energy Central School, Rawatbhata.
Life at Rawatbhata was simple, pristine, unpolluted, far from madding rush of a city. There used to be cultural programmes and social gatherings very often. Her mother is a singer and both of her parents are very much culturally inclined and they were very much involved with all those cultural activities. During those activities, as a small child, she picked up her first lessons in music. She used to hum the same songs with her immature words whatever her mother sang during rehearsals. It is during those days her potentials of singing was discovered by her parents.
At the age of 4, she started learning music, mainly Bengali songs, from her first Guru – her mother. She gave her first stage performance at their club’s annual function. At the age of 6, she started getting formal training in Hindustani Classical Music. She learned Classical Hindustani Music from Rakesh Sharmaji of Kota, Shri Jayawardhan Bhatnagar, her school's music teacher and thereafter, from Mahesh Chandra Sharmaji of Kota. She got her initial exposure to Hindi film songs and Rajasthani folk from Shri Bhatnagar. She received training in playback singing from Padmashree Late Kalyanji Bhai at the later stage. After shifting to Mumbai she continued her training in Classical Hindustani Music with Late Mukta Bhideji.
In Pursuit of her Dreams-
In the year 1997, she moved to Mumbai with her family when her father got transferred there. She did further schooling meritoriously from Atomic Energy Central School-4 and Atomic Energy Junior College with Science. Considering difficulty in pursuing Science with an anticipated career in Music, she switched to Arts and completed her Graduation in Arts with English as Major from S.I.E.S College, Sion, Mumbai.
Milestones-
1995 She won the All India Light Vocal Music Competition, New Delhi, organized by Sangam Kala Group, in the Light Vocal group in sub-junior level. Eminent judges Kalyanji-Anandji and Pt.Rajan & Sajan Mishra judged her at various stages. Her first TV performance followed this. It was a programme called “Awaz Nayi Andaz Wohi” in EL TV. This was her first experience in studio recording.
1996 She was selected for 75th Children’s Special Episode of TVS Sa Re Ga Ma, which she won. Later on, she won various other episodes of TVS Sa Re Ga Ma the last one being the Megafinal judged by an exceptional panel of judges comprising of Ustat Vilayet Khan, Anil Biswasji, Girija Deviji, Pandit Ram Narain, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and Ustad Zakir Hussain.
1998 She started recording in regional languages (Marathi, Bengali, etc.).
2000 Sanjay Bhansaliji and music director Ismail Darbarji selected her for playback for Paro played by Aishwarya Rai, in DEVDAS.
2002 She was launched as a playback singer with the release of DEVDAS music.
Miles to go and Promises to Keep-
After Devdas, she has been continuously working and recording songs with many music directors. She has recorded film songs not only in Hindi but also in Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Nepali, Oriya, Tamil, Telegu, etc.
