Shobha Gurtu City, performing alongside musical greats and, Pt. Birju Maharaj. Her album of gazal "Tarz" along with Mehdi Hassan was popular. She often lend her voice the collaborative jazz albums, of her son Trilok Gurtu. In 2000, she featured in the Jana Gana Mana Video, which was released to mark the 50th year of the Indian Republic, where she sang the Indian National Anthem, "Jana Gana Mana", along with other leading classical singers and musicians of India. In 1987, she received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, and later awarded the "Lata Mangeshkar Puraskar", "Shahu Maharaj Puraskar" and the "Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar".
Besant Theosophical College activities, was obliged to dissociate itself from the Madras University and became part of the newly organized National University. Rabindranath Tagore was the chancellor. In 1919, Tagore visited the college and during this time translated the lyrics of the Indian national anthem, "Jana Gana Mana", which he had previously written, from Bengali to English. Margaret Cousins (an expert in European music and wife of Irish poet James Cousins, then vice-principal of the college) set down the notation to the national anthem in the college, which is followed only when the song is sung in the original slow rendition style. During