Palak Muchhal
We all enjoy listening to music since it stimulates our minds, whether it be rock or slow, silent music. When we listen to our favorite singer’s melodic voice, the songs become more appealing to us. Through their voice, a singer from any area of the world or any music industry reaches the hearts of millions of people. In this post, we will discuss Palak Muchhal, a playback vocalist from the Bollywood industry. She was born on March 30th, 1992, in Madhya Pradesh and is a talented playback singer and lyricist from Indore.
Education and Brief Background
Palak Muchhal belongs to a Maheshwari Marwari family and has completed her schooling from Shree Agrasen Vidyalaya and further done her graduation in B. Com degree in Indore itself. Her father is Rajkumar Muchhal, who works for a private firm, and her mother is Amita Muchhal, who works as a homemaker.
She also has one younger brother, whose name is Palash Muchhal, and the pair of both brother and sister singing together has captured the hearts of music fans.
In her art and singing, Palak Muchhal is versatile and talented. She not only sings songs for a living now, but she also appeared on television in 2010. She made her theatrical film debut in a supporting role in the action-drama film ‘Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey,’ opposite Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika Padukone. She hasn’t been in any TV show since then. Rather, she has previously judged music competitions such as ‘The Voice India Kids.’
Music Career
Palak relocated from Indore to Mumbai in 2006 in order to pursue her career as a singer in Bollywood. She had a strong desire to be a playback singer since she was a child and had published six non-film records during her childhood and adolescence. She had previously released her first album, ‘Child for Children,’ through Tips Music, in 2001 when she was nine years old. Her second album, ‘Palken,’ was released in 2003, and she proceeded to release more of her songs in this manner, like ‘Dil ke Liye’ and ‘Aao Tumhe Chand Per Le Jaaye’. In 2011, T-Series published her religious devotional song record ‘Jai Jai Dev Ganesh.’ Finally, she sang her first Bollywood song in the film ‘Damadamm,’ which was released in 2011 and earned a lot of great feedback. In the same year, she recorded her second song, ‘Pyaar Ke Silsile,’ for the film ‘Na Jaane Kabse.‘ However, both the film and the soundtrack garnered negative feedback.
Muchhal knew Salman Khan, the Bollywood star whom she met in Mumbai. Khan had previously proposed her name to Sajid-Wajid, who were the music composers of his movie, Veer. He had also suggested her name to the Yash Raj Productions. The recommendation was followed by Muchhal collaborating with KK on the track “Laapata” for the Yash Raj label, which was featured in the 2012 hit film Ek Tha Tiger. Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif starred in the musical track. The song was a huge smash for the year, and through it, she got exposed to Hindi Music Industry.
In the same year, in 2012, she performed the song “Nainon Ne Nainon Se” for the film From Sydney with Love, which received positive feedback. In early 2013, Muchhal delivered two songs for music composers, Mithoon and Jeet Gannguli who created the music for the film Aashiqui 2. The album for Aashiqui 2 received critical acclaim, and her song “Chahun Main Yaa Na” became her next big success following Ek Tha Tiger’s ‘Laapata’ becoming her defining debut in the Hindi music industry. Muchhal also sang the Bengali track “Tui Borsha Bikeler Dheu” for the Bengali film Rocky, which was released in April 2013. She sang various songs composed by Himesh Reshammiya after doing her official entry into the Hindi Music Industry. She teamed with Mika Singh on Reshammiya’s composition “Jumme Ki Raat” in 2014, which ended up becoming the year’s biggest hit. She subsequently sang another version of the song where Salman Khan lent his voice. She also starred as the main vocalist in Salman Khan’s 2015 drama Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. In 2016, she contributed her vocals to Amaal Mallik’s composition “Kaun Tujhe” from M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, which was one of the year’s top female tracks. Reshammiya, Gannguli, Mithoon, and Amaal Mallik composed the majority of her tracks so far. In 2018, her Kannada single “Enammi Enammi” alongside Vijay Prakash was a great hit.
Muchhal gives credit to Salman Khan for giving her a much-needed break in the Hindi music industry. She thinks that if Salman Khan had not proposed her name, her career as a playback singer in the industry would have been postponed and less seamless than it was.
Social Work
Besides being a playback singer, Palak is well-known for her humanitarian and charitable activities, particularly her support for those who require heart surgery but cannot afford it.
When she was four years old, Muchhal joined Kalyanji-Anandji Little Star, a group of young vocalists. When she was seven years old, she devoted a week performing in stores in her hometown of Indore to raise money for the families of Indian troops killed in the Kargil War of 1999. Her endeavors were widely covered in Indian media, and she gathered a total of 25,000 rupees. Later the same year, she performed to fundraise for 1999 cyclone survivors in Odisha.
One day while traveling on a train, when she watched destitute kids using their clothes to scrub train compartments, she decided to use her singing talent to serve people. At about the same time, educators from Indore’s Nidhi Vinay Mandir contacted Muchhal and her family with a plea for a charity event to collect donations for their student, Lokesh, who had a congenital heart condition. Lokesh’s father was a poor shoe shop owner who couldn’t finance his son’s heart surgery because of the enormous expense. Muchhal and her parents consented to put on a show, and in March 2000, she repurposed a roadside vendor’s cart as a platform and raised Rs 51,000 to cover expenses for the boy’s surgery. The resulting attention spurred Devi Prasad Shetty, a Bengaluru-based heart specialist, to perform Lokesh’s surgery for free. Palak’s parents placed advertisements in local newspapers seeking donations for children requiring cardiac surgery, such as Lokesh. This resulted in a list of 33 kids who needed cardiac surgery.
Later the same year, a number of charity events were organized, raising a total of Rs 2,25,000. The fund was utilized to sponsor 5 children’s heart surgeries in Bangalore and Indore’s Bhandari Hospital. Indore’s T. Choithram Hospital volunteered to assist Muchhal in her attempts to save the lives of children at a reasonable cost. The expense of surgery at the hospital was cut in half, from 80,000 to 40,000 rupees, and one of the hospital’s surgeons agreed to forgo his charge for patients sent in by Muchhal.
Muchhal has toured widely in India and worldwide for her humanitarian programs, “Dil Se Dil Tak” in Hindi and “Save Little Hearts” in English, since 2000. Palash, her younger brother, also participates in the same concerts in order to raise money for children with renal disease. Muchhal performs roughly 40 songs per show, including Hindi Cinema songs, Ghazals, and Bhajans. She can sing in a total of 17 Indian dialects.
Palak was also a sensation at Maheboob College in Secunderabad, where she, along with her brother Palash would sing on various occasions, and as a result of this, their careers were launched. Muchhal contributed approximately 10 lakh rupees to the survivors of the Gujarat earthquake in 2001. Muchhal extended monetary support to the parents of a two-year-old girl with a hole in her heart in Pakistan using her charity money in July 2003. She owns a charity foundation named “Palak Muchhal Heart Foundation”. Muchhal was one of five valiant tales shown on the Star Gold channel’s “Rang De Basanti Salaam” program in 2006. Muchhal had performed 1,460 charity events around the world by June 2009, raising a total of Rs.1.71 crore for the Foundation. Three hundred thirty-eight children were saved because of these contributions.
Muchhal is allowed to be there in the surgical room by the surgeons. She wears her own surgical robe in the hospital and recites the Jain Navkar Mantra during the surgery. Muchhal and her parents do not profit financially from the charitable events, but she does get a doll for each child whose life she brightens via her work.
During the Covid-19-induced shutdown, Muchhal, who utilizes her live musical events to generate money for poor children, stated that over 400 children’s operations had been put on hold since the money flow had been hampered by the lack of live concerts. She claimed she felt accountable for their surgeries since some of them were in critical condition and required surgery as quickly as possible.
She began wondering how she would be able to afford those surgeries without concerts because there were none. And subsequently, online music events started taking place. By performing virtually every other day, she was able to continue contributing to operations, allowing her purpose to resume enabling children to be operated on once again.
According to sources, Palak has funded 2277 heart procedures as of June 2021.
Controversy
In June 2018, Muchhal filed an FIR at a Mumbai police station alleging that she had been followed and intimidated by a stranger. She said in her report that she had been receiving calls and texts from an unfamiliar number. The caller claimed to be her big fan and asked to meet her. When she respectfully rejected, the man apparently insisted and texted and called her. Muchhal initially chose to ignore him; however, things escalated when his texts became aggressive and violent. Acting upon the complaint, police detained the culprit, Rajesh Shukla, a 30-year-old lecturer from Bihar, near the CSMT train station. The man had reportedly traveled to Mumbai in order to meet the artist.
Honors and Recognition
Muchhal has garnered numerous honors for her singing skills, but she has been recognized most for her charitable work.
- Muchhal was awarded a Silver Medal by then-Vice-President of India Krishan Kant as the National Child Award For Exceptional Achievement in the year 2000.
- Her accomplishments in human services have earned her a place in the Guinness Book of World Records and the Limca Book of World Records.
- Palak’s feat has been incorporated into the seventh-grade moral science textbooks by the CBSE and Maharashtra State Board.
- In 2021, the American University in the United States gave her an Honorary Doctorate for her services to global peace.