Chinmayi

Chinmayi Sripada is an Indian playback singer, working mainly for the South Indian film industry. She is also a voice actor, television presenter and radio jockey. She is the founder and CEO of a translation services company Blue Elephant. She is often credited as Chinmayee and Indai Haza, but her birth name is Chinmayi. She rose to fame for her critically acclaimed song "Oru Deivam Thantha Poovae" from the National Award winning movie "Kannathil Muthamittal".
Early life and background.
Chinmayi received the CCRT Scholarship for Young Talent for Carnatic Music from the Government of India at the age of 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 has 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 Tamil, she speaks Telugu, Malayalam , English, Marathi, Bengali and German fluently.
Chinmayi has been married to Rahul Ravindran, since May 5, 2014.
Career.
Singing.
Playback singing.
She participated and won the singing of Sun TV, "Saptasawarangal", following which she was introduced by Singer Srinivas to film composer Mr. 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 "" 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", "Asku Laska" and "Kaathale Kaathale". She has also sung in Marathi language in movies such as "sairat". Chinmayi as of date has to her credit over 1,000 songs in eight 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.
Dubbing career.
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", Oh Baby 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. Now she is in the judges panel of Jaya star singers in Jaya tv.
Personal life.
In September 2013, through Twitter, Chinmayi's mother Padmhasini revealed Chinmayi was engaged to 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.
Activism.
Through her Twitter account, Chinmayi has been at the forefront of highlighting claims of sexual harassment in the Indian music industry, in what is widely considered as India's Me Too movement. She accused sexual harassment at the hands of Vairamuthu She also highlighted claims made by other individuals against OS Thyagarajan, Raghu Dixit, Mandolin U Rajesh, Karthik and several other carnatic singers not naming anyone individually.
Entrepreneurship.
Chinmayi is 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. 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.