Sunali Rathod

Sunali Rathod
Sunali Rathod in 2009
Background information
Genres	Playback Singer, Ghazal
Website	www.roopsunali.com

Sunali Rathod is an Indian playback singer. She is also a trained classical singer.

Sunali Rathod was born Sonali Sheth on 17 January into a Gujarati family in Mumbai. She studied in St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. She was bhajan singer Anup Jalota's first wife and married him (against his family's approval) while still a music student, but subsequently divorced him to marry Roop Kumar Rathod, a tabalchi (tabla player), playback singer, music director and a music composer. They have a daughter named Surshree or Reewa who is a singer herself.

She started to perform at the age of 10 under the guidance of Gujarati music composer Shri Purshottam Upadhyay. During this stage she was introduced to Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar, who became her mentor. She also learnt the intricacies of Indian classical music Classical music under Ustaad Faiyyaz, Niyaz Ahmed Khan, Ustad Mashkoor and Mubarak Ali Khan of Kirana School of Music. She sings in languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, English, Telugu etc..

At the age of 18, she released her first EP record of Gujarati song with HMV. In 1987, she released her first Ghazal album, ‘Aghaaz’. She also won the Best Ghazal singer award in 1987 by Emirates International in Dubai. She has sung various types of music such as Ghazal, Bhajan, Kheyal, Tappa and Light music.