1.Tansen, one of the most popular singers in the Mughal era was known to be such a powerful singer that he could light oil lamps. He was one of the famous Navratnas of Akbar’s court. It was said that when he sang Raag Megh Malhar, it rained. Furthermore, when he sang the Raag Dipak, it could start a fire. Such are the tales associated with his talents.

2. 26th June was declared as “Shreya Ghoshal Day” in 2010 by the United States state of Ohio. It was declared so by the then Governor Ted Strickland when the playback singer was on her summer US tour. Since then, her fans have been religiously celebrating this special day.

3. The first Indian to compose a symphony was Ilayaraja. In July 1993, he composed a full-length western classical symphony. It took a month to compose this one-hour symphony. Ilayaraja is also the first Asian whose symphony was performed by John Scott of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, an orchestra patronised by Queen Elizabeth.

4. Airtel’s signature tune, composed by A R Rahman, is the world’s most downloaded mobile music with over 150 million downloads. Incidentally, this tune has made its appearance in several forms including reverse car music. Rahman became the brand ambassador for Airtel in 2002. The brand campaign for Airtel featuring him was the first time he had appeared in a television commercial.

5. Lata Mangeshkar’s song ‘Ae Malik Tere Bande Hum’ from ‘Do Aankhen Barah Haath’ (1957) became such a rage that it was adapted by a Pakistani school as its national anthem. It was an original composition by Vasant Desai.

6. The first woman Shehnai player in India is Bageshwari Qamar. She was trained under renowned Guru Ustad Bismillah Khan. She made her debut in the year 1983 and was crowned as ‘Shehnai Queen’ at Chandigarh. She represented India at ‘The Bharat Mahotsav’ in Russia in 1988.

7. Sharan Rani was the first woman Sarod player in India. She is popularly known as Sarod Rani and she played the sarod for almost 70 years. She learnt sarod from great music maestros like Ustad Allaudin Khan and Ustad Ali Akbar. She was titled ‘Cultural Ambassador’ by Jawaharlal Nehru. She is one of the three women conferred the title of ‘Gems of India’ by the government of India. The other two women who conferred the title are M S Subbulakshmi and Lata Mangeshkar.

8. As the cinema industry was still considered a lowly profession in the 1940s, music director Naushad was introduced by his parents to his bride as a tailor. Ironically, the music that played in his ‘baraat’ was from ‘Rattan’ (1944) - which had been composed by him.

9. Pandit Ravi Shankar gave sitar lessons to ‘The Beatles’ guitarist George Harrison. He met the latter in London in 1966. Harrison was so taken by the sitarist that he ended up going to India later that year to study sitar with him for 6 weeks. A lot of expletives credit ‘The Beatles’ later Indian influences to this friendship following several further collaborations between the musicians.

10. The first musician to receive the Padma Bhushan award was M S Subbulakshmi. She received the Padma Bhushan in the year 1954 and the Padma Vibhushan award in 1975. Popularly known as the ‘Nightingale of India,’ she is one of the ‘Gems of India’ as previously mentioned. She was conferred the Bharat Ratna in 1988.

11. Indian musicians used to perform on a ‘Takht’ draped in a unique Kerman rug. It used to help them build a soothing, Eastern ambience for concerts and recordings.

12. Alisha is regarded as one of India’s pop music innovators. With her album ‘Made in India,’ she created Indipop history. The album became one of the best-selling Hindi album tracks in Indian music history. She is popularly known as the ‘Indian Madonna.’

13. Harjeet Singh Sehgal, also known as Baba Sehgal, released the first Hindi Rap Album, ‘Thanda Thanda Pani.’ It was a remake of ‘Ice Ice Baby’ by Vanilla Ice. There was a record sale of more than 30,000 copies. Baba Sehgal, an engineer by profession released his debut album ‘Dilruba’ in 1990. His music video ‘Dil Dhadke’ had the distinction of being the first Indian music video ever to be shown on MTV Asia.

14. The song ‘Masti Ki Paathshala’ from Rang De Basanti was quite a hit. When A R Rahman was handed the lyrics of the song, he was clueless as to how to arrange the music. Just then, director Rakeysh Mehra cleared his throat uttering “Uh-huhh-huhh.” That’s exactly how the song starts!

15. Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar established the first music school in India on the 5th of May, 1901. It was called the ‘Gandharva Mahavidyalaya’ located in Lahore. The school was eventually shifted to Mumbai after Independence.

16. Nathan Peer Baksh and Nathe Khan were the two people who founded the oldest Gharana of Hindustani music ‘Gwalior Gharana’ in the 16th century. It is one of the oldest Khyal Gharana and many other Gharanas later originated from the Gwalior Gharana.

17. The legendary Indian flautist who is counted among the greatest masters of the North Indian Bamboo flute Hariprasad Chaurasia was the son of a wrestler. Unlike many Indian musicians who were born into musical families, Chaurasia wasn’t born into a musical family. He had to rebel against his father and secretly began learning classical vocal music at the age of 15 from his neighbour.

18. Famous singer Armaan Malik is the youngest Dada Saheb Phalke award, winner. He was honoured with the award for the ‘Most Popular singer of the year category for his song ‘Bol Do Na Zara.’ He was also honoured with the Filmfare RD Burman Award under the category ‘New Music Talent’ in 2016 for his song ‘Main Hoon Hero Tera.’

19. Armaan Malik is also the youngest Bollywood playback singer to perform live at London’s Wembley Arena and the first Indian singer to be featured on the Times Square Billboard.

20. Pandit Ravishankar was composing his only opera when he died and won two Grammys after he died.

21. Since the famous Shehnai player Ustad Bismillah Khan was a Shia Muslim by birth, where music is forbidden or considered ‘haram,’ he started worshipping Goddess Saraswati just to adapt ‘the seven swaras as his namaaz.’

22. In 1997, Asha Bhosle became the first Indian singer to be nominated for the Grammy award, for Legacy, an album with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. She also recently entered Guinness World Records for the maximum number of recordings in history. She has sung over 11,000 solos, duets and chorus-backed songs in over 20 Indian languages since 1947.

23. Bhosle is also a successful restaurateur and runs a chain of restaurants in Dubai and Kuwait called Asha’s. It offers traditional northwestern Indian cuisine. She is an excellent cook herself.

24. Lata Mangeshkar made her musical debut at the age of 13 to help her family after her father died. She first entered the Marathi film industry and in 1946 sang her first Hindi film song ‘Aap Ki SevaMain’ composed by Datta Davjekar.

25. The famous female vocalist of Bollywood, Sunidhi Chauhan won the first TV veracity show for singing broadcasted on the channel Doordarshan.