Shreya ghoshal grew up in the remote southern corner of Rajasthan, in the small township of Rawatbhata near the city of Kota. Her father works in Bhabha Atomic Research Center as an Engineer in the nuclear power plant by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd and mother is a postgraduate in literature. She belongs to a highly academic family. Her early days as a singer started from the age of four. Her mother was a good singer and whenever she used to play any note on the harmonium, Shreya used to sing correctly on her own. Her father recognized her talent and decided to give her proper training. But as she was residing in an isolated place near Kota, she could not get much help. Later on she started going to Kota and started learning proper Hindustani classical music.
She auditioned for Sa Re Ga Ma, an Indian television show, and they sent her for a year and a half training. It was here that music director Ismail Darbar discovered her and determined that she should be the voice of Paro, the heroine in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas (played on-screen by Aishwarya Rai). She began recording songs for the movie in 2000; the film itself was released two years later.
Ghosal has completed her college education, and is planning to pursue her MA in literature, a subject which she adores. She enjoys Symphony and instrumental in western music and her favourite is ABBA group. But Indian music is definitely her soul. Her voice has a texture that suits romantic songs and she can project voice very well (a fine example is “Jadu Hai Nasha Hai ” from Jism). She is also comfortable singing sad songs or peppy songs. She has recorded in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, and Marathi, besides Hindi. Apart from Devdas, she has done songs for Jism, Saaya, Inteha, Out of Control, Khakee, Munnabhai MBBS, Dhoop, Kuchh Kaha Aapne, Aarman, Desh Devi, Tujhe Meri Kasam, LOC Kargil, Aetbaar, Police Force, Lage Raho Munnabhai,GURU etc.
Moviegoers from across the world heard Ghosal’s singing voice pictured on Aishwarya Rai, and she quickly became one of the top female playback singers in Bollywood, alongside poets-and-dancers/alka-yagnik" href="/great-musicians-dancers/alka-yagnik" >Alka Yagnik, poets-and-dancers/sunidhi-chauhan" href="/great-musicians-dancers/sunidhi-chauhan" >Sunidhi Chauhan, Sadhana Sargam and Kavita Krishnamurthy. Since Devdas, she has gone on to sing for many more actresses under the baton of various music directors, including M.M. Kreem, for whom she sang “Jaadu Hai Nasha Hai", a sensuous number pictured on Bipasha Basu in Jism.