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".
Madanapalle set it to music in Madanapalle. The National Anthem was written by Rabindranath Tagore as early as in 1911 and was sung at the annual session of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta on 27 December that year. But it was actually done in Besant Theosophical College, Madanapalle, where Tagore stayed for few days in February 1919 that the now familiar tune was set. It was Margaret Cousins, wife of educationist, Dr. James Henry Cousins, who composed the tune for "Jana Gana Mana". Dr.J H Cousins was then the Principal of the Madanapalle College that was established by Dr. Annie