C. S. Chitra

Chitra was born in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, into a family of musicians, her father Krishnan Nair was also her first teacher. Her older sister K. S. Bina and her younger brother K. Mahesh are also singers. Chitra was trained in carnival music by the renowned musician K. Omanakutti, transferred B.A. in music from first grade and third rank from the University of Kerala, and received a master's degree in music. She was selected for the National Talent Search Fellowship from the central government from 1978 to 1984 ^{[1] [2]} .

Her career began when she was represented by the famous state-owned singer M.G. Radhakrishnan in 1979, who recorded her voice in albums and films. She recorded the first songs for the films Attahasam, Snehapoorvam Meera and Njan Ekananu. She also gave West concerts with C.J. Jesudas in India and abroad.

In 1985, she made her Collywood debut with the song “Poojaikketha Poovithu” for Neethana Antha Kuyil , made to music by Elijaraja. She gave the name Chinnakuyil after she sang "Chinna Kuyil Paadum" from the Long Separation movie. Director Fazil appointed her to record the song after Elijah was impressed by her song in the original Malayalam version of , which he directed himself. She sang more duet songs with S.P. Balasubramaniyam . In 1991, she made her debut in Bollywood when she sang four songs for the film Love , although there should be a debut in 1985 when she recorded a song to the music of S.P. Ventikesh, but the song wasn’t released like that ^[3] , from now on her songs in Hindi became popular including the Kehna Hi Kya song for a dubbed version of the Bombay movie.

Now Chitra remains to this day one of the most popular off-screen performers in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Married to Vijayashankar, an engineer and businessman, now lives in Chennai. They had a daughter, Nandana, who was born in 2003 with Down Syndrome, but in 2011 she died while swimming in the pool when Chitra sang at the concert of A.R. Rahman in Dubai. ^{[4] [5] [6]}