page_title: Sunidhi Chauhan
section_title: 1995–2000: Career beginnings, Mast and Fiza
hierarchical_section_title: Sunidhi Chauhan / Career / 1995–2000: Career beginnings, Mast and Fiza
caption_attribution_description: English: Sunidhi and Salim Merchant promote Indian Idol 5 at Inorbit Mall
context_page_description: Sunidhi Chauhan is an Indian playback singer. Born in Delhi, she began performing in local gatherings at the age of 4 and made her career debut at the age of 12, with the film Shastra. During the year, she won the first singing reality show titled Meri Awaz Suno and rose to prominence after recording "Ruki Ruki Si Zindagi" from Mast. It won her Filmfare RD Burman Award for New Music Talent and was nominated for the Best Female Playback Singer.
  Her second breakthrough was released in 2000, with the song "Mehboob Mere" from Fiza, for which she received another Filmfare nomination. Through her career, she performed mostly item songs and was described by the media as the "queen of item songs". Chauhan received her third Filmfare nomination with the song "Dhoom Machale" from Dhoom followed by two more nominations during the next year for "Kaisi Paheli" and "Deedar De" from Parineeta and Dus. In 2006, she was bestowed with her first Filmfare award for her rendition of the song "Beedi" from Omkara and further two nominations for "Soniye" from Aksar and "Aashiqui Main" from 36 China Town.
context_section_description: In 1995, Chauhan performed at the 40th Filmfare Awards with the group "Little Wonders", when music director Aadesh Shrivastava heard her and wanted to record her voice for the film, Shastra (1996). She made her career debut at the age of thirteen, with the song "Ladki Deewani Dekho" from the film, alongside Udit Narayan. During the year, she won the first singing reality show on DD National titled Meri Awaz Suno, where she was honoured with the "Lata Mangeshkar Trophy" for the best female singer of India. Besides, she recorded her first solo album, Aira Gaira Nathu Khaira which was ultimately promoted as a children's album. Chauhan then realised her "limitations" and got formal training in classical singing from Gautam Mukherjee. For the next two years, she worked as a background vocalist.
  Chauhan met singer Sonu Nigam, who recommended her to Sandeep Chowta. During the time, Chowta was working as the music director for Ram Gopal Varma's film Mast (1999). Within two weeks time, Chauhan was signed to lend her voice for the film's song where she recorded the title track along with "Ruki Ruki Si Zindagi" and "Suna Tha". For the song "Ruki Ruki Si", she won the RD Burman award, at the Annual Filmfare awards, and was nominated for the Best Female Playback Singer, at the same ceremony. By the end of the year, she worked with Anand–Milind for Jaanwar and with Shrivastava for two films: Dahek and Bade Dilwala.
  Chauhan's second breakthrough was released in 2000, where she collaborated with composer-singer Anu Malik, for the song "Mehboob Mere" from Fiza which was picturised on Sushmita Sen. She considered the track that came to her the "most naturally", as recording of the song was completed in 15 minutes. Chauhan received another Filmfare nomination for Best Female Playback Singer for "Mehboob Mere". She was also heard in Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy-composed folksy flavoured "Bumbro" from Mission Kashmir, which was promoted from being a "background song into the foreground" because of "its beauty". The director of the film, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, wanted an innocent voice for the song when he roped Chauhan to sing for Preity Zinta. According to Chopra, "Chauhan could sound very girlish. So she sang the song with that slightly broken voice".
caption: Chauhan performing at an event in 2006
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