K. S. Chithra was introduced to Hindi film music in 1985; she recorded her first Hindi song composed by S. P. Venkitesh, which was not commercially released. For the 1991 Hindi film Love, composers Anand–Milind, called upon her to sing duets song along with S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and since then, Chithra has recorded for around 200 Bollywood songs. Then she went on recording some Hindi songs under A. R. Rahman's compositions from 1991 to 1995, her breakthrough in Hindi film music came through "Kehna Hi Kya" from the film Bombay (1995), which was highly successful in the North Indian region and gave her an identity in Bollywood film industry ("Kehna Hi Kya" was included in The Guardian newspaper's "The 1000 songs that everyone must hear"). For the song "Payalein Chunmun" recorded in the 1997