Popular singer Pushpa Pagdhare of “Itni Shakti Hume Dena Daata” song recently shared how she still remains grossly underpaid. “Itni Shakti Hume Dena Daata” was part of Nana Patekar’s cult hit film Ankush. The song strikes a fine balance between motivation and spirituality with the singer asking the higher power to bestow strength that faith never weakens.

However, the singer’s faith wasn’t strengthened by the commercial world of music as she still remains massively underpaid and receives peanuts as royalty for her song.

Details

Singer Pushpa Pagdhare has revealed that beneath the glitter and glamour of the Bollywood industry, the associated industries such as music, rarely get their fair share of credit or financial due.

She sung the mighty famous “Itni Shakti Hume Dena Daata”, a song which later went on to become the theme song of many public sector banks such as Punjab National Bank. Unfortunately, the popularity of the song is inversely proportional to the financial due that the makers deserved.

If one looks up the song on YouTube, the top three searches amass a viewing of over 39 million. The song was featured in the surprise hit Ankush which starred Nana Patekar and dealt with the themes of injustice, cracks in the system and the anger beneath a hardworking man. Little did the filmmakers know that this would become the crux of Pushpa Pagdhare, who gave her voice to one of the songs in the film.


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What Singer Pushpa Pagdhare Deserves VS What She Got

To give our readers the perspective of just how grossly underpaid the 80-year-old singer is, if Pushpa was paid half a sum of merely 50p/view on her song, she would have received a sum of Rs. 2 crores over the course of the decades. However, she has not been paid that amount. She has not even been paid a crore, or even Rs. 50 lakhs for the view. In reality, she hasn’t been paid a single rupee from the song’s royalty.


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Receiving Rs. 3,150 as Honorarium, Seeking Relatives’ Help

The singer currently lives all alone in Mahim’s Machimaar colony. The state government merely pays her a sum of Rs. 3,150 per month, which, to no one’s surprise, rarely reaches her on time. To make her ends meet and continue sustaining, Pushpa is sometimes forced to ask money from her relatives. In her interview with the Times of India, she was quoted saying-

“I have a couple of relatives who help me as an when the need arises. I don’t even get proper royalty for my songs. I am totally dependent on others and they come to my rescue and not the government, which does not pay attention to artistes like us who are living all alone and have no income and support.”


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This is How Much Pushpa Got For “Itni Shakti Hume Dena Data”

In her interview, she also shared as to how much she got paid for the song “Itni Shakti Hume”.

“The music composer, Kuldeep Singh, was new and got a break with the film, ‘Ankush’. I got paid Rs 250 for it and I’ve been told that the same song is now the ringtone on most ministers’ and politicians’ phones. But not one of them pays heed to the needs of the singer who sang that song.”


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Singing for Raj Thackeray’s Father, Not Receiving Payments

The singer has not only sung the cult favourite, but has also sung songs written by Raj Thackeray’s father Srikant Thackery. Unfortunately, the story is same here and she hasn’t been paid the royalty of those songs either.

“I sang the song ‘Aga pori sambhal daryala toofan aalay’ with Mohammed Rafi, which was hugely popular. I was paid royalty for it till the time the HMV music label was active. The payments stopped after the label ran out of business. The honorarium I get from the cultural department of the state of Rs 3150 is also not paid on time. Atleast the royalties need to come so that I can take care of myself,”

-the singer said.