Nikhita Gandhi

Who is Nikhita Gandhi?

Nikhita Gandhi is an Indian playback singer who has become one of Bollywood's most versatile and in-demand voices, recording across five Indian languages and lending her bright, emotive tone to a long run of hits — from the title track of Raabta to chart-topping dance numbers like "Burj Khalifa" and, most recently, the romantic "Aavan Jaavan" from War 2 (2025) opposite Arijit Singh. A trained classical and contemporary singer who once seemed destined for a career in dentistry, she has built a reputation for delivering polished, expressive vocals across romance, pop and high-energy film anthems.

Early life and education

Nikhita Gandhi was born on 1 October 1991 in Kolkata, West Bengal, into a family of dentists — both her father, Uday Veer Gandhi, and her mother, Nipa Gandhi, practised dentistry. Of mixed Bengali and Punjabi heritage, she grew up in a musical household and trained from a young age. She studied at La Martinière for Girls in Kolkata before moving to Chennai, where she earned a Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) from Sri Ramachandra University. Alongside her medical studies she pursued music seriously, training in Western classical singing at the KM Music Conservatory — the institution founded by Oscar-winning composer A. R. Rahman — a grounding that would shape her professional sound.

Career breakthrough

Gandhi made her playback debut in 2013 with "Modern Kalyanam" from the Tamil film Kalyana Samayal Saadham. Her profile rose sharply in 2015 with "Ladio" from Shankar's Tamil blockbuster I, composed by A. R. Rahman — she famously recorded the demanding track within hours of receiving it. Her true mainstream breakthrough in Hindi cinema came with the title track of Raabta (2017), composed by Pritam, a performance that won her the Zee Cine Award for Best Playback Singer (Female) in 2018 and established her as a leading new voice in Bollywood.

Musical style and languages

One of Gandhi's defining strengths is her range across languages and moods. She has sung in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Kannada, moving comfortably between tender romantic ballads and pulsing club anthems. Her voice — clear, agile and youthful — has made her a favourite for both intimate duets and big commercial dance tracks, and she is equally at home interpreting a Pritam melody, an A. R. Rahman composition or a contemporary pop production. That adaptability is partly a product of her formal training: her grounding in Western classical technique, combined with an ear for Indian film melody, lets her switch registers and accents from one project to the next without losing the bright, instantly recognisable timbre that producers seek out.

Her professionalism in the studio is part of her reputation, too — her early breakout "Ladio" from I (2015) was famously cut in a matter of hours after the lyric was adapted into Hindi for her, a story that has followed her as shorthand for her quick, instinctive recording style.

Notable songs

Gandhi's discography spans many of the era's most-streamed film songs. Highlights include "Ullu Ka Pattha" from Jagga Jasoos (a duet with Arijit Singh), the viral party hit "Burj Khalifa" from Laxmii, "Aao Kabhi Haveli Pe" from Stree, and "Qaafirana" from Kedarnath — again alongside Arijit Singh — which earned her the Sony MIX Audience Music Award for Best Duet in 2019. With "Aavan Jaavan" from War 2, composed by Pritam with lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya, she returned to the kind of sweeping, romantic film duet that first made her name.

Awards and recognition

Her trophy cabinet reflects both critical and popular acclaim: the Zee Cine Award for Best Playback Singer (Female) in 2018 for "Raabta", and the Sony MIX Audience Music Award for Best Duet in 2019 for "Qaafirana". Beyond formal honours, several of her songs have crossed hundreds of millions of streams and views, cementing her status as one of the most commercially successful playback singers of her generation.

Legacy

Nikhita Gandhi's journey — from a dentistry degree in Chennai to a marquee playback career in Mumbai — has become a familiar story of talent finding its true calling. By refusing to be boxed into a single language or style, she has carved out a durable place in Indian film music, equally trusted with a delicate love song and a stadium-sized dance hook. As collaborations like "Aavan Jaavan" show, she remains a first-call voice for India's biggest composers more than a decade into her career.