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".
Jana Gana Mana enthralled the college students while Margaret Cousins, then vice-principal of the college (also an expert in European music and wife of Irish poet James Cousins), both requested Tagore to create an English translation of the song and set down the musical notation to the national anthem, which is followed only when the song is sung in the original slow rendition style. Tagore translated the work into English while at the college on 28 February 1919, titled . The college adopted Tagore's translation of the song as their prayer song which is sung till today. Before it was the national anthem