She belongs to a family with a rich musical background. Her paternal grandfather, Dr. Sripada Pinakapani was a Padma Bhushan awardee.She was raised by a single parent (her mother) as her father had left the family when she was just one-and-a-half year old. In her childhood, her mother was her singing guru. She taught her Hindustani Classical Music and Carnatic Music. Chinmayi in her Childhood.She spent a few years of her childhood in Mumbai and then shifted to Chennai with her mother, at the age of 6. There, she started her schooling.She has inherited the music skills from her mother and started her musical journey at an early age.At the age of 14, she won a singing competition show, Saptasawarangal; which was aired on Sun TV. Throughout the competition, singer Srinivas liked her voice so much that he took her with him to meet A. R. Rahman.She made her singing debut in 2002 at the age of 15 with the National Award winning movie Kannathil Muthamittal. She sang Oru Deivam Thantha Poovae for the movie and came into the limelight with her very first film song. The song was composed by A. R. Rahman.She made her Bollywood singing debut with the song Holi Re for the film Mangal Pandey: The Rising in 2005. Since then, Chinmayi has lent her voice in several Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada films.In 2005, she became the founder and CEO of Blue Elephant; a language services company.She has hosted Star Vijays reality show Super Singer and Star Plus show Chote Ustaad..She has been a Voice Over Actor for almost 50 films in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi.