Sharda Rajan Iyengar

Sharda Rajan Iyengar Biography

Sharda Rajan Iyengar, popularly known as Sharda is one among those less known playback singers of yesterdays. She is most known for a few songs she has contributed to Bollywood, particularly in Shankar Jaikishen music. It’s believed that, there was a difference in opinion between Shankar and Jaikishan for using Sharda as playback singer for their compositions that subsequently resulted in their drifts. Among all songs, Titli udi of Suraj, Baat zara hai aapas ki of Jahan pyar mile and Duniya ki ser karlo of Around the world are hit songs during old era of music.

Born in a conservative Brahmin family of Tamil Nadu, she had interest in music from her childhood days. She was a brilliant student too that time, graduating with distinction for Bachelor of Arts. Raj Kapoor offered her a voice test after hearing her in a concert and she got the big break to playback on Vaijayanthimala for the song ‘Titli udi’ of blockbuster hit Suraj. Shankar - Jaikishen was the music director of the movie. She has been successively nominated for Filmfare awards for the period 1969-1972, i.e. 4 years when Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bholse were ruling the industry. The songs are ‘Tumhari bhi jai’ of Deewana (1968), ‘Tera ang ka rang’ of Chanda aur Bijli (1969), ‘Baat zara’ of Jahan pyar mila (1970) and ‘Aap ke peeche pad gayi’ of Ek Naari ek brahmachari (1971). She won it once for ‘Baat zara’ which was awarded in the year 1971.

As a drift occurred between Shankar and Jaikishen, she sang for Shankar in many movies. Also she has sung with almost all leading playback singers of Bollywood including Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Yesudas and Mukesh. Apart from S-J pair, she was the favourite of composers like Ravi, Dutta ram and Usha Khanna. Though she was not able to reach the success of Mangeshkar sisters, she is still remembered for the few songs she has sung for Bollywood. She took a break from the industry after singing songs for Kaanch ki Deewar in 1986. She has done music composition to a few movies like Maa, bahen aur Biwi and Mandir Masjid. She was the first female Indian singer to release a pop album of her own. It was ‘Sizzlers’ released by HMV in 1971.

Her other hits include Jaane chaman of Gumnaam, Leja mera dil of Evening in Paris and Tum pyar se dekho of Sapnom ka saudagar.

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Updated: December 27, 2017