Chinmayi

Early life and background

Chinmayi hails from a musically rich family. A paternal granddaughter of the famous Telugu Carnatic guru and singer, Sripada Pinakapani, Chinmayi was raised by her mother, T. Padmhasini, a singer and musicologist, taught her Carnatic music and Hindustani classical music. After her birth and early childhood in Mumbai, Chinmayi relocated to Chennai, where she attended the Children's Garden school until the age of 10. She was then enrolled at Hindu Senior Secondary School, Indira Nagar and went on to complete her school education through home study modules where she was partly home-schooled after her 10th standard.

Chinmayi received the CCRT Scholarship for Young Talent for Carnatic Music from the Government of India at 10. She won the gold medal from All India Radio for Ghazals in 2000 and the Silver for Hindustani Classical Music in 2002. She learned German as a language in the Max Mueller Bhavan in Chennai and completed certification courses from NIIT and SSI in web design. During her school life, she held jobs with both Sify and studentconcepts.org. Chinmayi currently holds a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Madras. She is also a versatile dancer and mostly enjoys the Odissi form of dance. Apart from her mother tongue Telugu, she speaks Hindi, English, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, and German fluently.

Playback singing

She participated and won the singing of Sun TV, Saptasawarangal, following which she was introduced by Singer Srinivas to film composer A. R. Rahman. Chinmayi's playback singing career began with her performance of Rahman's "Oru Dheivam Thanta Poove" for the film Kannathil Muthamittal. After a couple of years of singing exclusively for Tamil, Telugu, Tulu and Malayalam films, she made her Bollywood debut in Mangal Pandey: The Rising with the song "Holi Re". About a year later, she garnered more recognition with her performances of "Tere Bina" and "Mayya" in the movie Guru. In 2007, the song "Beda Beda" marked her first venture into Kannada playback singing. She has since received critical acclaim for songs such as "Oru Dheivam Thantha Poove", "Sahana", "Vaarayo Vaarayo", "Kilimanjaro", "Sara Sara" and "Asku Laska". Chinmayi as of date has to her credit over 1,000 songs in six different languages.

Additional works

Chinmayi announced that she will release a single in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu in iTunes on occasion of Joy of Giving Week on 2 Oct, and proceeds of which shall go to 17000 ft.org so as to promote philanthropy, charity and the concept of giving.

She also collaborated with Shekar Ravjiani to launch a single in Tamil/Telugu the name of the album being Sitakokachiluka, again for which the legal downloads of it will go to Ma Niketan, a home that takes care of abandoned or uncared for girl children in Thane, a charity that composer Shekhar has been supporting.

Voice acting

Chinmayi turned a voice actor for the Tamil film Sillunu Oru Kadhal (2006), speaking dubbing for actress Bhumika Chawla. Since then, she has dubbed for several lead actresses in Tamil films, including Tamannaah Bhatia, Sameera Reddy, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Trisha Krishnan. She has also provided her voice in dubbed Telugu films. She dubbed for the critically acclaimed fictional character Jessie who was portrayed by Trisha in Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya. The same character appeared in the film's Telugu version Ye Maaya Chesave and was portrayed by Samantha, while being portrayed by Amy Jackson in the Hindi version Ek Deewana Tha. Chinmayi dubbed for the character in all three films and won the Nandi Award for Best Female Dubbing Artist for Ye Maaya Chesave in 2010. Chinmayi dubbed in Vettai for Sameera Reddy and has dubbed for her in all Tamil movies. She dubbed for Samantha Ruth Prabhu in Eega in Telugu and its Tamil version Naan Ee in 2012. She dubbed voice for Nayantara for Tamil version of the movie Sri Rama Rajyam. Chinmayi has dubbed for Samantha Ruth Prabhu in many films like "Rabhasa", "Atharintiki Daaredi", "Ramayya Vastavayya", "Eega", "Sithamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu", "24" and many more in Telugu.

Television and radio

Chinmayi served as a television presenter during the first season of Airtel Super Singer on STAR Vijay that was aired between April and August 2006 and the first season of Airtel Super Singer Junior from February 2007 to July 2007. In 2008, she returned as host of the second season of Airtel Super Singer, though she discontinued her role before the completion of the season, as she stated the show extended the period of the initial contract. During this time, she was also a radio jockey on Aahaa FM 91.9 in Chennai, on a breakfast show titled Aahaa Kaapi Klub. She later began compering Star Plus's Chhote Ustaad, which ran concurrently with another music talent show she started hosting in June, the debut season of Sun TV's Sangeetha Mahayuddham. On 15 August 2010, Chinmayi announced that that day's Chhote Ustaad would be her last as host, leaving the show after only eight episodes.

Personal life

In September 2013, through Twitter, Chinmayi's mother Padmhasini revealed her future son-in-law to be Rahul Ravindran who is also a South Indian actor. Chinmayi and Rahul were friends, colleagues and in due course started dating each other by June 2013. They got married on 5 May 2014.

Entrepreneurship

Chinmayi serves as the CEO of Blue Elephant, a translation services company she founded in August 2005. The company has ever since been the language service provider for various Multinational companies like Scope E Knowledge, Ford, Dell, Ashok Leyland, Reliance India, to name a few. She received an award from SAARC Chamber for Women Entrepreneurship for Excellence in a niche industry for Blue Elephant in 2010. In 2011, she became the first ever woman entrepreneur from Tamil Nadu to be selected for the prestigious FORTUNE/US State Department Global Women's Mentoring Partnership Program.

Singing awards

Awards for dubbing

Other awards

Honours

Trivia