उदित नारायण

Udit Narayan Jha is one of the defining playback voices of Hindi cinema, with a career spanning more than four decades and songs in over thirty languages. Rooted in the Maithili-speaking belt straddling Bihar and Nepal, he began as a folk singer at Radio Nepal before moving to Mumbai in the late 1970s to train in classical music. His Hindi playback debut came in Unees-Bees (1980), where music director Rajesh Roshan gave him a duet with his idol Mohammed Rafi. The real breakthrough arrived with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988): 'Papa Kehte Hain' made him a star overnight and won him his first Filmfare Award. Through the 1990s and 2000s his warm, boyish tenor became the on-screen voice of Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan, anchoring landmark soundtracks such as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai and Swades, most often in duets with Alka Yagnik. He has won multiple National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards — the only male singer with wins across three consecutive decades — and was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2009 and the Padma Bhushan in 2016. He remains active, still recording film songs into the mid-2020s.