Daler Mehndi, a bhangra or pop singer from India was born on August 18, 1967. Mehndi is a scholar of traditional Punjabi music and his first album broke sales records in India. Since the year 1995 he has recorded a number of extremely successful albums in India, and also sung in several Bollywood movies. He has also obtained international fame.
Born and brought up in Patna, Daler Mehndi started singing at the age of five and was educated in the ragas and the shabad from the Guru Granth Sahib by his parents. When he was fourteen years of age, he spent three years learning the tabla, harmonium and tanpura from his uncle Raahat Ali Khan Saheb. Mehndi got married in 1986 and at present has three children. After his marriage, he moved to San Francisco, United States and worked as a cab driver before returning to India in 1991 and forming a band. At first he sang ghazals motivated by the poets Qateel Shifai and Firaq Gorakhpuri.
Daler Mehndi in due course changed his vocation from classical music to pop, and in 1995 his first album Bolo Ta Ra Ra, with tunes founded on those given to him by his mother was released. It sold half a million copies in four months and 20 million copies in total, thus becoming the best selling non-soundtrack album in the history of Indian music. Mehndi received the Award for Voice of Asia International Ethnic and Pop Music Contest in 1994. He also received Channel V`s Best Male Pop Singer Award for Bolo Ta Ra Ra and also for Dar Di Rab Rab in 1996 and for Ho Jayegi Bale Bale in 1997. He has made special appearance in the films Mrityudata and Arjun Pundit.
His success assisted him in negotiating a record-breaking deal with his record company Magnasound for 20.5 million rupees. He has also been a guest star on the new Indian adaptation of the children`s television series Sesame Street known as Galli Galli Sim Sim, aired on Cartoon Network. His album song "Tunak Tunak Tun" is very popular on the Internet. Tunak Tunak Tun was the earliest music video to make use of bluescreen technology in India. Daler Mehndi focuses on a category of Punjabi Pop that he fuses with Rababi singing, a Sikh musical practice. The sound is more or less like that of Techno, dance, and house music, with the folk sounds of an Indian tabla being played in the background.
Daler Mehndi has also taken part in various social welfare activities. He has introduced the Daler Mehndi Green Drive in order to make a cleaner environment in Delhi. Moreover, he has donated 85 million rupees to the green drive, 12 million rupees to Cargyle charities, and built 16 houses in Gujarat after the earthquake there. He also performed in a concert in Pakistan to raise funds for the quake victims. He has also helped re-establish the victims of the Orissa cyclone and the street children in Kenya. His major musical scores include Bolo Tara Rara (1995), Dardi Rab Rab (1996), Ho Jayegi Balle Balle (1997), Tunak Tunak Tun (1998), Ek Dana (2000), Nach Ni Shaam Kaure (2002), Mo Jaan Laen Do (2003), Shaa Ra Ra Ra (2004) and Raula Pai Gaya (2007).
