'Chinna kuyil' Chitra burst on to the Tamil film music with the film, `Poove poochutava'. Though her first song was 'Poojaikketha poovidhu' in the film 'neethaana andha kuil', she became famous only with the song, 'chinna kuyil paadum' from 'poove poochudava'. She has won the national award for the best female playback singer three(or more?) times. She reigns the Malayalam film music world almost in par with K.J. Yesudoss.
She has a sound classical background having trained under Prof. Omanakutty and she is probably the only one in TFM to have a degree in Music. She has a bachelor's degree from Trivandrum Music college and actually went on to pursue her masters. She lacks versatility and sometimes pronounces tamil badly. But she usually does a better job when it comes to songs that are carnatically oriented.