Happy Birthday Wishes to Music Director Usha Khanna Ji

Usha Khanna  was born on 7 October 1941. She is the third female music director to enter the Indian film industry, after Jaddan Bai and Saraswati Devi and is one of the most commercially successful music directors in the male dominated music industry. She is most known for songs like "Chodo kal ki baatein", "Shaayad meri shaadi ka khayal", "Zindagi pyaar ka geet hai" and "Aap to aise na the". She remained active for more than 3 decades from 1960s to 1980s.
She received a Filmfare Awardnomination for composing the songs for the huge hit film Souten (1983). She was married to director, producer, lyricist, Sawan Kumar Tak, from whom she separated later on.
Born in Gwalior, her father, Manohar Khanna, was a lyricist and singer.  When he came to Bombay (now Mumbai) for some work in 1946 he met Jaddanbai . On her request he started writing Gazals for Hindi films by the name, Jaaved Anwar .

The popular music director O. P. Nayyar introduced Usha Khanna to Sashadhar Mukherjee, a powerful man in the Indian film industry at that time. She sang a song for Mukherjee, and when he realised that she had composed the song on her own, he told her to compose two songs per day for one year. After a few months, Mukherjee signed her as the composer for his movie Dil Deke Dekho (1959) as a music composer. The film, which also introduced the actress Asha Parekh, became a big hit, and Mukherjee hired her again for another Asha Parekh starrer Hum Hindustani (1961).
After she started composing music for Hindi movies, Usha Khanna struggled to establish herself as a music director, despite producing many hit songs. She often collaborated with Asha Bhosle, who referred to Usha Khanna as her daughter, and Mohammed Rafi. This trio produced many hit songs.Many of songs sung by Mohammed Rafi under composition of Usha Khanna are still very popular.
Saawan Kumar was often the lyricist for Usha Khanna, and wrote most of his lyrics for her songs. He directed and produced the lyrics for eleven movies she scored the music for. Usha Khanna was married to Sawan Kumar Tak but later they separated and she lives in Bombay (present name Mumbai).
She gave chance to singers who were little known at that time – Anupama Deshpande, Pankaj Udhas, Hemlata, Mohammed Aziz, Roop Kumar Rathod, Shabbir Kumar, and Sonu Nigam. Many of these went on to become notable singers. Usha Khanna herself also sang a few songs as a playback singer.
Many of Usha Khanna's songs are still very popular. Some of the other movies she provided for are 'Shabnam', 'Aankh Micholi', Saajan Bina Suhagan, 'Sautan', 'Sajan ki Saheli', 'Ab Kya Hoga', 'Lal Bungalow', 'Dada', 'Do Khiladi', 'Hanste Khelte'.
 Usha Khanna remained quite active as a composer until the mid-nineties. Until now, the last movie she has given music to was in 2003. The movie was Dil Pardesi Ho Gaya, produced and directed by her ex-husband Saawan Kumar who she was briefly married to.
Usha Khanna has given music to non-Hindi movies too. The Malayalam movie Moodal Manju (1969) is still remembered for some of the finest songs in Malayalam including 'Nee Madhu Pakaroo' by K. J. Yesudas and 'Maanasa Mani veenayil' by S.Janaki. Agni nilavu and Puthooram Puthri Unniyarcha are the other Malayalam movies done by her.