P. Susheela

Pulapaka Susheela, popularly known as P. Susheela, is a legendary Indian playback singer associated with the South Indian Cinema for over six decades. A voice that enlivened lives  and a recipient of five National Awards for Female Playback and numerous state awards, Susheela is widely acclaimed as a singer who defined feminism in South Indian Cinema and is well known for her mellifluous vocal performances  for 40,000 film songs across South Indian languages. The song and "Paal Polave" from "Uyarndha Manidhan" remain popular today in Tamil Nadu. At the 16th National Film Awards, it won the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer for P. Susheela, making it the first Tamil film to win a National Award under that category. She was recommended for “Bharat Ratna”, the country’s highest civilian award in the year 2013 by the Governor of Tamil Nadu. Hailed as "Lata of the South", "Melody Queen", "Nightingale of the South, "Gana Kokila", "Gana Saraswathi", she is also considered one of the rich voiced singers whose pronunciation of the syllables to be more clear and precise in any of the languages she sang.In a career spanning more than six decades, she has recorded numerous songs in various Indian languagesincluding Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Sanskrit, Tulu, Badaga. She has also sung for Sinhalese films. Her mother tongue is Telugu. She can speak Tamil, Kannada and Hindi languages .Susheela is the female singer in Kannada who recorded highest number of songs, above 5000.