Kunal Ganjawala (born 14 April 1972) is an Indian playback singer whose songs are mostly featured in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

and

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

films. He has also sung in

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

, Bengali and other official languages of India. Kunal began his career by singing jingles. He came to limelight in Hindi cinema with the song "Bheege Honth Tere" from the film ''

Murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

'' in 2004. It was his first biggest hit. The song earned him Zee Cine Award as Best Playback Singer in 2005. He came to limelight in Kannada cinema with the song "Neene Neene" from the film ''

Aakash Akasha or Akash (Sanskrit ' ) means space or sky or æther in traditional Indian cosmology, depending on the religion. The term has also been adopted in Western occultism and spiritualism in the late 19th century. In many modern Indo-Aryan l ...

'' in 2005.

Career

Ganjawala graduated from St. Peter's School, Mazagaon. Kunal wanted to be either a chartered accountant or an actor. Kunal admits that it was his parents' support which made him possible to become a singer. Kunal's sister is a Bharat Natyam exponent, while his father plays the harmonica. With his parents' support he took singing seriously and started believing that he can become a singer. Later, Ganjawala learned music from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan under the guidance of Sudhindra Bhaumick. His first singing assignment was a Ranjit Barot-composed jingle titled ''Doodh Doodh'' for the Operation Flood advertisement. Ganjawala has said that he was taken seriously by other music directors because he was working with Barot. Ganjawala's first break in Bollywood was ''Ab Ke Baras'' in 2002. Although the song did not mark him as a prominent singer, it earned him many offers. Thereafter he sang in many movies, such as ''Saathiya'' (2002), ''Indian Babu'' (2003), ''Paisa Vasool'' (2004), ''Khakee'' (2004), ''Rudraksh'' (2004), ''Dhoom'' (2004) and ''Meenaxi'' (2004). His breakthrough hit was "Bheege Hont", from the film ''

'', which won the 2005

Zee Cine Award Best Playback Singer – Male Zee is the phonetic pronunciation of the letter Z in American English ("zed" in Commonwealth English). Zee may also refer to: People *Zee (徐), a Wu Chinese surname, an equivalent of Xu * Anthony Zee (b. 1945), Chinese-American physicist * Ch ...

and

IIFA Best Male Playback Award The IIFA Best Male Playback Award is chosen by the viewers and the winner is announced at the ceremony. Arijit Singh and Sonu Nigam holds the record for most wins in this category; Singh also holds the record for most nominations. Udit Narayan ...

. Ganjawala entered the Kannada film industry in 2005. His very first song in

, ''Neene Neene'' composed by music director

R P Patnaik Ravindra Prasad Patnaik is an Indian music composer, singer, actor, screenwriter and film director who works in Telugu, Kannada and Tamil. He won three Filmfare Awards and three Nandi Awards. He has toured the world to perform his live shows ...

and written by

K. Kalyan K Kalyan (born 1 January 1975) is an Indian songwriter and music composer known for his works in Kannada film industry. He is also called as "Premakavi. Career K.Kalyan entered the film industry at the age of 17 as a Music director cum lyrici ...

for the movie ''

Akash Akasha or Akash (Sanskrit ' ) means space or sky or æther in traditional Indian cosmology, depending on the religion. The term has also been adopted in Western occultism and spiritualism in the late 19th century. In many modern Indo-Aryan la ...

'', was a hit of the year. His big break in South India came in 2006 from the Kannada blockbuster film ''

Mungaru Male ''Mungaru Male'' () is a 2006 Indian Kannada-language romantic drama film co-written and directed by Yogaraj Bhat, and produced by E. Krishnappa. It stars Ganesh, Pooja Gandhi and Anant Nag. The film is believed to have shaped and strengthened t ...

''. His song "Onde Ondu Sari" written by

Kaviraj Kaviraj (or Rajkavi, Kaviraja) is a title of honor, which was given to poets and litterateurs attached to royal courts in medieval India. Eminent Charans who were inducted into the royal courts due to their literary merit as royal poets and his ...

and composed by music director

Mano Murthy Mano Murthy is an Indian musician and composer in the Kannada film industry. His is best known for his songs in '' Mungaru Male'', one of the biggest hits in the Kannada industry. Before moving onto becoming a composer, he was an entrepreneur, ...

became the biggest hit of the year. It created records, including for highest sales and downloads. Popular singer

Sonu Nigam Sonu Nigam (born 30 July 1973) is an Indian singer, music director and actor. He has been described in the media as one of the most popular and successful playback singers of Hindi Cinema and Kannada Cinema. He has been honoured by the Govern ...

who is known in South India for his hundreds of Kannada songs, recently composed a theme song for the Karnataka Bulldozer's team in the Celebrity Cricket League. With lyrics by

Sowmya Raoh Sowmya Raoh is an Indian playback singer who has performed in Kannada, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu languages. Early life and career Sowmya was born in a Kannada speaking family to veteran singer B. K. Sumitra and Sudhakar in Bangalore, Karnatak ...

, this was sung by the trio of Ganjawala, Nigam and Raoh. Ganjawala has sung nearly 450 Kannada Songs thus far. He has participated in ''

Sa Re Ga Ma Saregama India Ltd. (Saregama refers to the first four notes of the Indian musical scale); formerly known as The Gramophone Company Of India Ltd. is India's oldest music label owned by the RP- Sanjiv Goenka Group of companies. The company i ...

'', an Indian singing talent competition on Zee TV (now ''Sa Re Ga Ma Pa'') when it was hosted by Nigam. He was a judge on ''

Amul Star Voice of India Star Voice of India is an Indian television singing competition that premiered on 18 May 2007 and ended on 24 November 2007 on StarPlus. The show was directed by Gajendra Singh, creator of the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa series, and produced by Urban Bre ...

'', another singing competition on

Star TV Star TV may refer to: * E! (Canadian TV channel) (formerly Star!), a Canadian entertainment news channel * Las Estrellas (Spanish for The Stars), the Mexican television network * Estrella TV (Spanish for Star TV), the American Spanish-language net ...

, together with

Shreya Ghoshal Shreya Ghoshal (born 12 March 1984) is an Indian singer and television personality. One of the highest-paid and most well-established playback singers of Indian cinema, she has received four National Film Awards, four Kerala State Film Awar ...

and

Pritam Pritam Chakraborty (born 14 June 1971), also known mononymously as Pritam, is an Indian composer, instrumentalist, guitarist, and singer. After working as an ad jingles composer, he debuted as a co-composer in the 2001 Hindi film Tere Liye. ...

. Since then Ganjawala has worked for many music directors like

Anu Malik Anwar Sardar "Anu" Malik (born 2 November 1960) is an Indian music composer, singer, music arranger and score composer. He is an Indian National Award and Filmfare Award winning musician, who primarily composes music for the Hindi film indus ...

Anand–Milind Anand and Milind Srivastava are a duo of Indian film music composers. Born to composer Chitragupt, they have composed music for over 200 Bollywood films. The brothers debuted in 1984 with ''Ab Ayega Mazaa'' and had their major breakthrough with ' ...

, Nadeem-Shravan,

, Himesh Reshammiya,

Ismail Darbar Ismail Darbar is an Indian film score composer, instrumentalist, violinist and music director. Career Ismail Darbar is from Surat, Gujarat. He worked for several years as a session violinist for leading music directors Laxmikant Pyarelal, ...

, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy,

Anand Raj Anand Anand Raaj Anand is an Indian composer, lyricist and playback singer in the Hindi film industry. He was nominated for the Best Music Director Filmfare Award for ''Kaante'' (2003). Early life Anand Raj was born on 8 November 1961 in Delhi in ...

Rajesh Roshan Rajesh Roshan Lal Nagrath (born 24 May 1955) is an Indian Hindi cinema music director and composer. He is the son of music director Roshan and singer Ira Roshan. Personal life Rajesh Roshan has a Punjabi Hindu father and Bengali Brahmin m ...

, Viju Shah,

Aadesh Shrivastava Aadesh Shrivastava (4 September 1964 – 5 September 2015) was a music composer and singer of Indian music. Initially, he had worked as a drummer to music composers including R. D. Burman, Rajesh Roshan before working independently as a music d ...

Roop Kumar Rathod Roop Kumar Rathod is an Indian music director and playback singer. He has performed a number of songs in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Nepali, Bhojpuri and Kannada films. Personal life Rathod is the sec ...

Daboo Malik Israr Sardar "Daboo" Malik is an Indian music director, composer, singer, actor and scriptwriter in the Indian Music Industry. Malik was born in Bombay, Maharashtra to the veteran music director Sardar Malik. Discography • By Daboo's MWM E ...

, and Sanjeev-Darshan. Kunal recently sang for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's ''Saawariya''. His numbers from the films ''Maashah Alaah'' and ''Pari'' were running top on the chart. Other than

and

, he has also sung in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

, Punjabi, Odia,

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

, Assamese and Sindhi languages. His song "Oh my love" from Bengali language movie '' Amanush''

Jeet Gannguli Jeet Gannguli (, born Chandrajeet Ganguly, on 24 May 1977), is an Indian score composer of Bengali and Hindi movies. Early life and education Born in a Bengali Brahmin family, Gannguli was initiated into the world of music at the age of thr ...

and "Channa Ve Ghar aa jaa" from a Punjabi album ''Channa Ve'' by DJ Anit & Music director Santokh Singh was also a success. In 2007, he participated in a concert tour in North America, called The Incredibles, also featuring

Asha Bhosle Asha Bhosle (; Mangeshkar; born 8 September 1933) is an Indian playback singer, entrepreneur and occasional actress and television personality who predominantly works in Indian Cinema. Known for her versatility, she has been described in th ...

, Nigam and

Kailash Kher Kailash Kher (born 7 July 1973) is an Indian music composer and singer. He sings songs with a music style influenced by Indian folk music and Sufi music. He was inspired by the classical musicians' Pandit Kumar Gandharva, Pandit Hridaynath Ma ...

. On 3 April 2010 he performed at RECSTACY, the annual cultural event of NIT DURGAPUR. On 26 November 2010 he performed at SDM UTSAV, the mega fest event of

SDMCET Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College of Engineering and Technology (also called SDMCET) is an autonomous private engineering college located in Dharwad in the state of Karnataka, India. It was established in 1979 and is affiliated under ...

. In February 2018, he recorded India's first jazzy ghazal Dhatt, for the Indian recording label Indian Talkie. The song was composed by

Sumit Stackable Unified Module Interconnect Technology (SUMIT) is a connector between expansion buses independent of motherboard form factor. Boards featuring SUMIT connectors are usually used in "stacks" where one board sits on top of another. It was pub ...

and written by Zeest and is a blend of two completely different genres,

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

and Ghazal. The song was released on

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, throu ...

2018 to over 300 music streaming platforms, including

Saavn JioSaavn is an Indian online music streaming service and a digital distributor of Hindi, English, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bhojpuri and other regional Indian music around the world. Since it was founded in 2007 as Saavn, ...

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

Deezer Deezer is a French online music streaming service. It allows users to listen to music content from record labels, as well as podcasts on various devices online or offline. Created in Paris, Deezer currently has 90 million licensed tracks in ...

, and Wynk Music. The Lyrical Making Video was released on Indian Talkie's official YouTube Channel, featuring Kunal Ganjawala and Sumit and his team.

Personal life

In 2005, he married fellow singer

Gayatri Iyer Gayatri Ganjawala () is an Indian playback singer, primarily in Bollywood. She landed up with the part of Princess Anjuli in the West End of London musical production of M. M. Kaye's ''The Far Pavilions'', which opened in the summer of 2007 ...

. They performed the title track for

STAR One Star One was an Indian pay television network based in Mumbai. It was launched on 1 November 2004 and was it owned by Star TV and distributed worldwide by Fox International Channels. In November 2006, Star One was launched in the UK on Sky. ...

's ''

Antakshari Antakshari, also known as Antyakshari (अंताक्षरी ) is a spoken parlor game played in India. Each contestant sings the first verse of a song (often Classical Hindustani or Bollywood songs) that begins with the consonant of Hin ...

'' together. He is a staunch devotee of

Sri Sathya Sai Baba Sathya Sai Baba (born Ratnakaram Sathyanarayana Raju; 23 November 192624 April 2011) was an Indian guru. At the age of fourteen he claimed that he was the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba, and left his home to serve his devotees. Sai Baba's b ...

Awards and recognition

Kunal Ganjawala has received the following recognitions: , - , rowspan= 3 , 2005 , rowspan= 5 , ''

'' ,

Filmfare Awards The Filmfare Awards are annual awards that honour artistic and technical excellence in the Hindi-language film industry of India.Al The Filmfare ceremony is one of the most famous film events in India. The awards were first introduced by th ...

" Best Male Playback Singer"
" RD Burman Award for New Music Talent"
''(For: Bheege Honth Tere)'' , rowspan=5 , - ,

IIFA Awards The International Indian Film Academy Awards, popularly known as IIFA, is an annual awards ceremony for Bollywood. Produced by Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, the winners of the awards are decided by fans, who vote online for th ...

" Best Male Playback"
''(For: Bheege Honth Tere)'' , - ,

Zee Cine Awards The Zee Cine Award (ZCA) is an Indian awards ceremony for the Hindi film industry. They were instituted in November 1997 to award "Excellence in cinema - the democratic way". They were first held in Mumbai until 2004, when the ZCA went internat ...

" Best Playback Singer – Male"
''(For: Bheege Honth Tere)'' , - , rowspan= 2 , 2006 ,

Star Guild Awards The Producers Guild Film Awards, previously known as the Apsara Awards, is an award event hosted by the Producers Guild of India to recognize excellence in Hindi film and television. Originated by filmmaker and scholar Amit Khanna in 2004, the ...

" Best Male Playback Singer"
''(For: Bheege Honth Tere)'' , - ,

Bollywood Movie Awards The Bollywood Movie Awards was an annual film award ceremony held between 1999 and 2007 in Long Island, New York, United States, celebrating films and actors from the Bollywood film industry based in Mumbai, India. History The predecessor to ...

Bollywood Movie Award – Best Playback Singer Male The winners are listed below:- See also * Bollywood Movie Awards The Bollywood Movie Awards was an annual film award ceremony held between 1999 and 2007 in Long Island, New York, United States, celebrating films and actors from the Bollywo ...

"
''(For: Bheege Honth Tere)'' , - , 2009 , ''

Mussanjemaatu ''Mussanjemaatu'' is a 2008 Indian Kannada-language romance film starring Sudeep and Ramya. The film was directed by Mussanje Mahesh. The movie is produced by Suresh Jain. The music of the film was launched on 4 April 2008. The movie was releas ...

'' , 56th Filmfare Awards South " Best Male Playback Singer"
''(For: Kaddalu Mansana)'' ,

Discography

Hindi

Non-film

Kannada

Bengali

Tamil

Telugu

Marathi

Punjabi

Malayalam

Odia

Urdu

Assamese

Tulu

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ganjawala, Kunal Living people Indian male playback singers Kannada playback singers Bollywood playback singers Sa Re Ga Ma Pa participants Musicians from Mumbai Elphinstone College alumni Indian Hindus 1972 births Filmfare Awards winners International Indian Film Academy Awards winners Zee Cine Awards winners