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Meena Durairaj is a South Indian film and television actress. Meena debuted as a child artist in Telugu and Tamil films and has later starred in films produced by various regional industries. She is one of the most established actresses in the southern Indian film industry. In addition to acting, Meena is also a top model, singer, dancer, TV host and occasional dubbing artiste.

Meena was born in Chennai as the daughter to a Tamil father Durairaj and a Malayali mother Raj Mallika. She was enrolled in Vidyodhya schools in Chennai. Because of her busy acting schedule she had to discontinue schooling in the 8th standard, later taking up private coaching and completing the 10th standard. 

She went on to get her MA in History from the University of Madras through the open university system in 2006.  Meena is a trained Bharathanatyam dancer and speaks six languages: Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada and English.

Her mother has played a pivotal role in shaping her career and acted as her guide advisor. Meena has always credited her mother for standing behind her as pillar of strength. When Meena's make-up artist failed to turn up at a remote village in Kakinada during the shooting of Bobbili Simham in 1994, her co-star Roja Selvamani did her hairstyling, beginning their friendship. Other best friends are actress Sanghavi, Sridevi Vijaykumar,Maheswari and Devayani.

She has acted with Vishnuvardan, Rajinikanth, Balakrishna, Ravichandran, Kamal Haasan, Mohanlal, Vijayakanth, Ajith Kumar, Prabhu Deva, Sarathkumar, Mammootty, Jayaram, Suresh Gopi, Prashanth, Sudeep, Chiranjeevi, Venkatesh, Nagarjuna, Raviteja, eventually herself becoming a star. She had hits with films like Muthu, Ejaman, Veera , Avvai Shanmughi and Mutamestri. She also acted opposite Vijay in Shajahan and played a role along with Surya in Periyanna. She acted opposite Vikram in Kadhaleesham. Meena has acted both as a child and as an adult opposite Rajnikanth. She has acted with almost all the superstars in South India.

Following the release of Muthu in Japan and its commercial success, Meenas popularity rose in Japan. A role in Kadha Parayumbol and in its Tamil and Telugu remakes, Kuselan and Kathanayakudu respectively, were well received by audiences. Meena has expressed regret about Kuselan, after her part was overshadowed. She has gained two substantial roles in Malayalam opposite Mammootty and Mohanlal. Her acting in Mariyadhai alongside Vijayakanth has been well received.

Meena has said that her own favorite roles were in Bharathi Kannamma and Shock in Tamil, Seetha Ramayya Gaari Manavaralu in Telugu, Santhwanam in Malayalam and Swathi Muthu in Kannada, "though every film of mine is close to my heart."

Meenas releases in 2009 are Mariyadhai with Vijayakanth and Katha, Samvidhanam: Kunchako with Sreenivasan. She was reported to be taking the lead actress role in the Malayalam film Sagar alias jackie, but she was replaced by Bhavana.In Malayalam, Meena paired with Mohanlal the most and almost all their movies were successful.They are considered as "lucky pair" in Mollywood.

Meena married Vidyasagar on July 12, 2009 at Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, Andhra Pradesh. Vidyasagar is a Bangalore-based Software Engineer.  Meena gave birth to a daughter Nainika on 1 January 2011 at 11.30am in Chennai.