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. For the song "Payalein Chunmun" recorded in the 1997 film "Virasat", Chithra received the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer and became the only South India based female singer till date to achieve the feat. Her most number of Hindi songs were recorded for Anu Malik, the most notable being her voice recorded for eight songs out of eleven in the soundtrack of "Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon" in 2003.