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Alisha Chinoy (also named Alisha Chinai for a while!) made her name from the 1980s in both Indipop albums as well as playback singing in Hindi cinema. She began her singing career with the album Jadoo in 1985, and in cinema with Tarzan the same year. Babydoll, Aah… Alisha!, Madonna, Kamasutra and Alisha – Madonna of India were her initial pop albums, but she hit it big with the bestseller Made In India, especially its title-track.
In films, though Tarzan, like Jadoo, was popular, her breakout song remains Kaate nahin kat-te in Mr. India (1987). The singer is barely active today. She recorded last for the film Daddy in 2017 and has incidentally also sung in Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu and Konkani but never in her mother-tongue Gujarati!
Here’s looking at her most famous anthems down the decades.
Kaate nahin kat-te (Mr. India / 1987)
This remains the go-to seductive film song even today among the classics, and also a top favorite rain song. Written by Javed Akhtar and composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal, it has Kishore Kumar complementing her and Sridevi gyrating to Saroj Khan’s exotic (and even erotic!) choreography with Anil Kapoor.
Made in India (Made in India / 1995 / Indipop)
If we can single out one album that made Indipop take off in the real sense in the 1990s, it is this one. Alisha Chinoy sang every song and this lead track became cult, and remains so. It was composed by Biddu and written by Shyam Anuragi. The album received the International Billboard Award, also won the Freddie Mercury Award for Artistic Excellence and sold over 5,000,000 units.
Raat bhar jaam se (Tridev / 1989)
Composed by Kalyanji-Anandji and Viju Shah and written by Anand Bakshi, this seductive song (again!) was filmed on Sangeeta Bijlani and was one of the popular tracks in the all-hit score.
Sexy sexy sexy mujhe log bole (Khuddar / 1994)
Another 1994 Anu Malik number (Bappi Lahiri and Malik gave Chinoy the maximum number of her film songs), this Indeevar-written hot track was filmed on Karisma Kapoor. In those days, the censors went into hyper-mode and even got the lyrics modified to Baby baby baby mujhe log bole, but to no avail!
Ruk ruk ruk (Vijaypath / 1994)
One could say that this Anu Malik-Shyam Anuragi number fast-tracked Tabu to stardom. Even today, in various articles on her, the versatile actress cannot outgrow the tag of being called the “Ruk Ruk girl.”
Kajraa re (Bunty Aur Babli / 2005)
Gulzar wrote this atypical (for him) song filmed on Aishwarya Rai (she was not yet a Bachchan then!) and both Bachchan father and son. The endemic hit from this Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy soundtrack remains popular to this day and had Shankar Mahadevan himself and Javed Ali singing for the heroes.
