Her story

The youngest of eleven children, Usha Timothy grew up in a Christian family in Nagpur, in a house full of music.

Her father was an officer with the CBI, and he held big mehfils at home, where classical singers often performed. Everyone in the family, her parents and her brothers and sisters, sang. She trained with Pt Laxman Prasad and learned tappas and thumris from Nirmala Devi.

The concert in Nagpur

In 1956, Madhusudan, who was organising a Kalyanji Anandji night in Nagpur, faced a problem. Mohammed Rafi, Mukesh, Manna Dey and Hemant Kumar were on the programme, but there was no female singer. He suggested eight-year-old Usha, and the composers turned her down as too young. She was sent on stage during the interval anyway, sang "Rasik Balma" from Chori Chori, and the audience asked for more. From then on Kalyanji Anandji took her to their concerts.

Her first songs

Her first work for a film was a set of bhajans for Durga Puja (1962), but no record of them was released. Her first released film song was "Tu Raat Khadi Thi", a duet with Rafi for Himalay Ki God Mein (1965).

She was thirteen and still in the sixth grade when she recorded it. Kalyanji Anandji warned her there would be a lion in front of her. She replied that the lion was her own, since she had sung with Rafi on stage since she was eight. At the microphone her nerves took over anyway, until Rafi patted her head and told her she would sing well with him.

In 1962, aged twelve, she sang "Ai Mere Watan Ke Logon" at an Army show at the stadium in Ahmedabad, with C. Ramchandra and Mahendra Kapoor, before Lata Mangeshkar sang it.

The recording years

Kalyanji Anandji gave her hundreds of chances to sing for films, and most of her 1970s songs for them were duets with Rafi. In 1967 Laxmikant Pyarelal gave her "Jab Jab Bahaar Aayi" and "Papa Jaldi Aa Jana" in Taqdeer.

She also worked with Roshan, Bulo C Rani, Hansraj Behl, S.N. Tripathi, S. Mohinder, Sardar Malik, Usha Khanna and Sonik-Omi, and sang with Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, Mahendra Kapoor, Shamshad Begum, Asha Bhosle, Suman Kalyanpur, Hemlata and Krishna Kalle.

Beyond Hindi, she sang for Punjabi, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Rajasthani and Malayalam films. She has never counted, but it comes to more than a thousand songs.

When Uljhan ran for twenty-five weeks, she received its silver jubilee trophy. Dev Anand presented her with a best singer award.

On stage

She was a regular in C. Ramchandra's shows and travelled with the troupes of Kalyanji Anandji, Rafi, Mukesh and the Hawaiian guitarist S. Hazara Singh, including Rafi's tour of Holland. Rafi was her real teacher for playback: he showed her how to find the feeling in a lyric, how to control her breath, and how to act a little with her voice. She calls him her guru.

The tours took her across the world: to the United Kingdom with Rafi in 1979, to the United States with Rafi and at Shankar Jaikishan nights, where she travelled with Mala Sinha, Rishi Kapoor and Kabir Bedi, and to the West Indies with Shammi Kapoor. In Delhi she sang at a show held for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and she sang with Mukesh at his last show in India.

After Rafi died in July 1980, a rumour went round that she had given up singing. It was never true.

In September 1991 she received a Sakha Award at a ceremony in New Delhi.

Today

She lives in Mumbai with her family, still sings, and shares her memories of those years on her YouTube channel, Yaadein Suhani. She still appears at concerts and on television. In December 2018 she received the Mohammed Rafi Award from Spandan Arts at a ceremony in Bandra. The Lata Mangeshkar Samman came in 2014, and in 2025 she received the Mukesh Ratan Award in Delhi.

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