Veteran Bollywood singer Alka Yagnik struggles with rare hearing impairment after virus attack

KUALA LUMPUR, June 19 – Veteran Indian singer Alka Yagnik has been diagnosed with a rare sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) due to a viral attack.

The two-time National Award winner announced her condition in an Instagram post on Tuesday.

“When I got off a plane a few weeks ago, I suddenly felt like I couldn’t hear anything anymore.

“My doctors diagnosed a rare hearing loss of the sensorineural nerve due to a viral infection… This sudden, severe setback caught me completely off guard.

“As I try to deal with this, please pray for me,” Yagnik wrote, adding that she hopes to “refocus” her life and return to the music scene soon.

Yagnik, 58, also warned her fans and younger colleagues in the music industry against loud music and the use of headphones.

The Calcutta-born singer has sung over 20,000 songs in her music career spanning over four decades.

In the 1990s and 2000s she became famous through numerous evergreen interpretations, including Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Language (2000) Title tracks.

Yagnik also shares the record with veteran singer Asha Bhosle as the playback singer with the most Filmfare Awards: she has won the award seven times.

In 2022, Yagnik was named the most streamed artist on YouTube by Guinness World Records, having recorded 15.3 billion streams worldwide.