Sunali Rathod Biography 
Sunali Rathod is a noted singer who is known for her associated ghazal albums with her husband, popular ghazal singer – Roop Kumar Rathod. They together have sung many popular duets of ghazal albums. She was married to a family of talented singers – Chaturbhuj Rathod (father-in-law), Vinod Rathod (singer) and Shravan Rathod (music director of Nadeem-Shravan duo). She was first married to singer Anup Jalota, another popular ghazal singer. Later she was remarried to Roop Kumar Rathod, a popular singer and composer and the couple has one daughter Reewa. Sunali sings in many languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, English and Telugu and she sings in different genres of music like Ghazal, Kheyal, Bhajan, Tappa and Light music.
Sunali Rathod started to perform at the age of 10 under the guidance of Purshottam Upadhyay, Guajarati composer. She was introduced to Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar, brother of Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, who became her mentor. Later she trained classical music under Ustaad Faiyyaz, Niyaz Ahmed Khan, Ustad Mashkoor and Mubarak Ali Khan of Kirana style of Hindustani music. 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’ which won her he Best Ghazal singer award in 1987 by Emirates International in Dubai.
She was first married to Anoop Jalota. It was a love marriage, but the couple got separated. Then she married Roop Kumar Rathod. Roopkumar was Anup Jalota’s tabla player and musical friend. She joined hands with her husband at a time when ghazal era was to seize with stalwarts like Jagjit Singh and Hariharan. It was the beginning of a new era. Ishara, Khushboo, Mitwaa, Mohabbat Ho Gaya, Sunn Zara, Bazm-e-Meer and Velvet Voices are their ghazals with magical combination. ‘Woh Meri Mohabbat Ka Guzara Zamana’ is one of their top hits. Sunali’s other interests include astrology and numerology.
Published: N/A
Updated: February 13, 2014
