P. Susheela

Pulapaka Susheela (born 13 November 1935), popularly known as P. Susheela, is an Indian playback singer associated with the South Indian cinema primarily from Andhra Pradesh for over six decades. The song "Paal Polave" from Tamil film Uyarndha Manidhan brought her the first ever award at the 16th National Film Awards by winning her the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer in 1969. Smt P.Susheela was the first recipient of this prestigious honour, which also made Uyarndha Manidhan, the first film to win a National Award under that category. She is fondly called "Gana Kokila" and "Gana Saraswathi". She is also considered as one of the rich voiced singers whose pronunciation of the syllables are to be very clear and precise in any of the languages she sang. In a career spanning more than six decades, she has recorded nearly 50,000 songs in various Indian languages including Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Sanskrit, Tulu and Badaga. She has also sung for Sinhalese films. Her mother tongue is Telugu. She can also speak Tamil fluently, with a little Hindi and Kannada.