Alka Yagnik (born March 20, 1966 in Kolkata, West Bengal, India) is an Indian singer who is ranked among the best-known Hindi playback singers of all time. She is a seven-time winner of the Filmfare Best Female Playback Award and has done playback singing for over 700 Indian films. Alka Yagnik was born in Kolkata on March 20, 1966 to a Gujarati family. Her mother Shubha Yagnik was a singer of Indian classical music. At the age of 6, she started singing for Calcutta Radio. At age 10, her mother brought her to Bombay as a child singer. She was advised to wait till her voice matured but her mother remained determined and on a subsequent visit, Alka got a letter of introduction to Raj Kapoor from his Kolkata distributor. Raj heard the girl and sent her with a letter to noted music director Laxmikant. Impressed, Laxmikant gave her two alternatives - an immediate start as a dubbing artist, or a later break as a singer; they settled for the latter.