Malini Rajurkar was born into an archetypal middle class family of the Indian household, where everybody thinks of growing up with studies, getting a secured job, get established in his/her career and finally get married and raise a family. However, she was always interested in singing classical music and have a career in it in future. She had full support though, of her family. In the mean time, she joined Ajmer College with a musical scholarship, where she met her future guru, the legendary Pt. Govindrao Rajurkar, who trained her in the tricks and nuances of classical music. She was an excellent task manager, who, in spite of being married, knew exactly how to balance between home and her career. Her in-laws were completely supportive in her decision, who were a musical family themselves. She had also assimilated other nuances of classical music from other legendary gurus. She was open to every kind of musical variation and boasts of an individualistic free style. Her heavy reverberating voice, with an unusual range and depth, rendered her khayals an uncanny tinge. In fact, she is only of the few singers in the classical genre who is a successful and exceptional singer of tappa.

Malini Rajurkar is one of the most foremost of senior women singers in the country. Her name is today associated with the quintessence of Gwalior gharana, as also with single-minded devotion to those classical virtues that are being eroded from the scene of music.

Malini`s associations with music began at a very early age, in her own family circle. Born in a middle-class family in Ajmer, Rajasthan, she was introduced to music by her family who were keen lovers of music. The basic music lessons she picked up at school brought forth her hidden talents. While her family encouraged her training, they were apprehensive about the outcome of it all. Like typical middle class householders, they expected her to take up a secure job, get married and raise a family. A music scholarship from Ajmer Music College was greeted with much hesitancy by her father. But he did not stand in her way. At the Ajmer College, Malini had the great fortune to meet her guru, Pt. Govindrao Rajurkar, a disciple of Pt. Rajabhaiyya Poochwaale of Gwalior gharana. She found a wonderful teacher in him as he found a highly gifted student in her. She also went on to marry his nephew Vasantrao Rajurkar, himself a student of Poochwale. This was an alliance that proved fruitful to her, for he never stood in the way of her career and, more importantly, went on to perfect her training. Crucially, her in-laws, who hailed from Gwalior, put music above other things. Once they realized the gifts of their daughter-in-law, they encouraged her greatly by advising her to pursue her art for the sheer love of it. But Malini was able to strike a balance between the demands of her family life and her deepest calling.

She also had a degree in Mathematics from the Rajasthan University by now. She planned on taking a Master`s degree and taking up a job as a college lecturer. She initially worked for a while in a girls` school as a Maths teacher. But she was not fated to spend her life in the classroom teaching geometry or arithmetic. Even to this day one would mistake her, going by her stern eye and demeanour, for a formidable high-school headmistress. Music was to be her sole commitment. Soon she along with her husband to Hyderabad which remains her home to this day. Life became an oscillation between her family responsibilities and her career. But she found a very adjusting partner in her husband.

Malini, though trained in the pristine tradition of Gwalior, which goes back to Pt. Shankarrao Pandit, was deeply influenced by the singing of Kumar Gandharva. She was also taken by the individualistic approach of Pt. Jitendra Abhisheki to raagas. Though a classicist, she has openly declared herself to be an accommodating musician who has not hesitated to evolve her own style by taking what is good from other idioms. This has given her singing a certain range that comes from wide exposure.

The heavy sonority of voice, possessing depth, drive and range, gives Malini`s music its depth. What is attractive about her style is that she avoids dulcet tones even when she executes high-pitched phrases. Her voice gets an alluring silvery sparkle when it touches the upper register. Her tonal purity, maturity of imagination and steadiness of notes, give her khayals a sense of classical solidity and weight. Keeping in tune with the best traditions of Gwalior, she is perhaps one of the few exponents of tappa, as also one of its finest singers in the country. Tappa is a very difficult form to master, as it requires a pliant voice and imaginative resources for spontaneous improvisation. After a heavy khayal recital, she usually thrills her listeners with her amazing mastery over this mercurial form. Her mastery over this form gives even her khayal recitals that irresistibly attractive `folk` hue from time to time.

The traditional raagas which form part of the Gwalior repertoire would find Malini in excellent form. Raagas that possess improvisatory scope and emotional depth, are the ones she excels in. Her excellent recording of Jaunpuri is built on the durable foundations of Gwalior gayaki. But nowhere does she impress so much as she does in her live recording of Bhoopal Todi (HMV), which is a favourite of hers. Similarly, her Bhoopali (Music Today) possesses verve and lyricism as also her Shankara and Kedar.

Malini Rajurkar`s maturity is the envy of many of her contemporaries. She earned it through finding that rare aesthetic balance which even the best take decades to locate. She found it and gave the world the joy of that discovery. In her, one finds not a `superior` entertainer; rather one who communicates the joy of her own aesthetic and musical enquiries and encounters to others.