Showing all artists born at Kolkata

Rachana Banerjee was born on 2nd October 1978 in Kolkata city, West Bengal state. She started her career in Bengali films and also appeared in numerous Oriya, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films. Apart from films she also worked as a Television host for Zee Bangla channel show named Didi No. 1. While working in studio for Didi No. 1 she fainted because of accidental fire broke out in studio.

During her decades long career she appeared in numerous commercial hits like Kanyadanam co-starring Upendra and Srikanth, Bavagaru Bagunnara? co-starring Chiranjeevi, Rambha and Paresh Rawal, Sooryavansham co-starring Amitabh Bachchan, Jayasudha, Anupam Kher and Mukesh Rishi, Guru co-starrimg Mithun Chakraborty, Tapas Paul and Jisshu Sengupta, Tulkalam co-starring Mithun Chakraborty and Biplab Chattopadhyay, Ramdhanu co-starring Gargi Roychowdhury and Shiboprosad Mukherjee, among other films.

Tota Roy Chowdhury is a Bengali, Indian male actor and martial artist of TV and films. An alumnus of Goethals Memorial School, Kurseong; he was brought up in strict discipline by the Irish-Catholic brothers. He represented his school in football, basketball and athletics. In his final year, he won the schools Best Athlete shield. He graduated from St. Xaviers College, Kolkata. In his 2nd year in college, he made up his mind to join the Indian Army and was preparing for the CDS exams when fate intervened and he was asked by the prominent director Prabhat Roy to play a small role in his film. That one film brought other offers and soon he decided to become a professional actor. He started off by playing minor negative characters who got beaten to pulp, by the hero, in Bengali potboilers. After a while he was so fed up of being typecast that he left movies entirely and concentrated on television. It is here that he first tasted success. He was spotted in back-to-back serials playing very different roles by the national award winning director Rituparno Ghosh and cast opposite Nandita Das in his film Shubho Mahurat. In spite of the presence of such veteran artistes, such as Raakhee, Sharmila Tagore and Nandita Das in the film, Tota made his mark. He was cast again opposite Aishwarya Rai in Rituparno's Tagore adaptation, Chokher Bali. It was his breakthrough performance, which was hailed by both the critics and the cinegoers. He won several awards, including the prestigious BFJA Award for the Best Actor.

Mirza Abbas Ali known as Abbas, is an Indian film actor and model. He has appeared in Kollywood Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi and Kannada films.

Born in Calcutta and educated in Mumbai, he was discovered modeling in Bangalore. Since 2003, he has become less engaged in the industry and is running a family-based business in Bangalore, Chennai & Hyderabad.He has made videos for the hit album, Yeh Hai Prem (1999). He made a special appearance in the Tamil game show Deala No Deala, hosted by Rishi on 28 November 2009 for Bakrid. The show is a remake of the popular game show Deal Or No Deal.

He is married to Erum Ali, a fashion designer; the couple has a son and a daughter, Erum worked as Costume designerr in many films notably Aayirathil Oruvan and Guru En Aalu where his co-star Madhavan's wife Saritha too worked as designer.


Acting was not his first priority. Abbas wanted to become an Air Force pilot. Failing that, he wanted to go in for Masters in Business Management (MBA). But he landed in films after he was done with college. He has been a professional model since std X. His colleagues were Suman Ranganathan, Rahul Dev, Sameer Malhotra, Rajeev Gopalkrishna and Dino Morea.

Mumbai model Abbas was in Bangalore during his holidays, when he bumped into director Kathir who asked him to act in his Tamil film. Initially reluctant due to his little knowledge of the language, he opted out and left for his college in Mumbai. A year later, Abbas received a call from producer K. T. Kunjumon asking him to come over for a screen test as a result of Kathir's insistence for Kadhal Desam.

The film was successful and earned him many female fans, Post-success, Abbas revealed that he felt the "Mustafa Mustafa" song catapulted him to stardom and enjoyed a strong female base after Kadhal Desam.  As a result of respect for his first director, Abbas made a guest appearance in kathir's Kadhal Virus. He appeared in the music videos of Hindi pop album and also appeared in Television commercials of Harpic Toilet Cleaner.

Rituparna Sengupta is a talented Bengali actress hailing from Kolkata. Rituparna is considered as a leading lady in Bengali films. She has been working since more than a decade and has given a splendid performance in many Bengali and Hindi films. Rituparna was born on 7th November 1971 in West Bengal. Her parents are Prabir and Nandita Sengupta. She had a keen interest in arts like painting, singing, dancing handicrafts etc. So she learned all of these arts at a painting school named as Chitrangshu. She did schooling from Mount Carmel School and did graduation from Lady Brabourne College. She started doing MA at the university of Calcutta but left it to ponder her film career.

She has appeared in more than 30 Bengali films and has bagged many awards and nominations for her performance. Some Hindi films in which Rituparna featured are 'Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji' ,'Bumm Bumm Bole' ,'And Once Again' ,'Donno Y... Na Jaane Kyo' ,'Do Knot Disturb' ,'Love Khichdi ' ,'Main Meri Patni Aur Woh' and 'Aakrosh' etc.

Rituparna is married to Sanjay Chakraborty and the couple has two kids, Son named as Ankan and a daughter named as Rishona Niya.

Pritam Chakraborty (born 14 June 1971), better known by the mononym Pritam, is an Indian music director, composer, singer, instrumentalist and record producer for Bollywood films. In a career spanning nearly one and a half decades, Pritam has composed musical numbers (songs) for more than a hundred Bollywood movies. He has won 3 Filmfare Awards, 4 Zee Cine Awards, 3 Star Screen Awards, 3 IIFA Awards and 3 ITA Awards among many others.
Pritam's composing career started in Bollywood, when he was signed for the film Tere Liye along with his friend Jeet Gannguli, The duo next composed music for the 2002 Yash Raj Films production Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai. The music of the movie was a huge success and most of its songs went on to become chartbusters. After the duo parted ways, Pritam composed music for the second film of Sanjay Gadhvi, Dhoom, which received overwhelming response. The music of the movie topped the charts rendering huge fame to Pritam.

Pritam was born in a middle class Bengali family to Anuradha Chakraborty and Prabodh Chakraborty. His father, who was an insurance officer, used to teach light music on western instruments to young kids for a nominal fee, till an accident forced him to quit his job and concentrate on the meager earnings from his music school. Pritam gained his early training in music from his father and learned to play the guitar while he was still in school.

After completing his schooling at St. James' School and Graduating in Geology in 1992 from Presidency College, Pritam dropped out of his M.Sc. classes in 1993 to chart a career of his choice from FTII, Pune where he took up Sound Recording and Engineering in 1994. During this time, he was offered a chance to compose background music for a film by Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Gaal. He also learned African music from musicologist Kedar Avati.
Pritam joined a Bangla band, Chandrabindoo. Before that he formed another band with his Presidency batchmates, called "Jotugriher Pakhi" for which, he used to play the Guitar.They even have a cassette released to their credit at that time.

After completing his sound engineering course from FTII Pune, Pritam came to Mumbai in 1997. He started composing ad jingles and became friendly with other young strugglers such as Shantanu Moitra, Rajkumar Hirani, Sanjay Gadhvi and Jeet Gannguli. Pritam composed renowned jingles for brands like Santro, Emami, McDonald's, Head & Shoulders, Thums Up, Limca, Complan and composed title tracks for TV serials such as Astitva, Kkavyanjali, Ye Meri Life Hai, Remix, Kashmir, Mili, and Dil Kya Kare.

Pritam had built a name for his compositions by finely blending Indian classical music with western influences. His compositions for Gadhvi's second movie Dhoom were a runaway hit.The title-track of Dhoom in two versions – Hindi (by Sunidhi Chauhan) and English (by Tata Young) – broke geographic barriers becoming popular in pubs in the UK, USA and the East Asia and won him a Zee Cine Award for Best Track of the Year. He received two nominations for Dhoom.

He followed this up with compositions for films like Gangsterand Dhoom 2. His compositions for Anurag Basu's Life in a... Metro garnered him very positive reviews.He formed a band called Metro with Suhail Kaul, Soham Chakraborty, Eric Pillai and Bangladeshi singer James for the movie.

He won his second Zee Cine Award for Best Track of the Year for the song "Mauja hi Mauja" from Jab We Met by Imtiaz Ali. Jab We Met won him his first Apsara Award for Best Music Director. He composed for two more Imtiaz Ali films, Love Aaj Kal and Cocktail which were critically and commercially successful and gave him many awards and Nnominations.

His Sufi songs for the 2010 movie Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai were immensely popular with the masses and songs like "Pee loon" and "Tum Jo Aaye" were declared chartbusters. He teamed up again with Mahesh Bhatt and Vishesh Films for music of Crookof which the song "Mere Bina" got instant recognition with public. His Foot-Tapping numbers for Rohit Shetty's Golmaal 3 were also equally Successful.In 2011, he got to work for Salman Khan's Ready and Bodyguard. He recreated the famous 1971 song, Dum Maro Dum for Ramesh Sippy's 2011 movie of the same name.He then composed for the Romance Mausam which had a strong influence of Punjabi. The songs were phenomenal hits in Northern India with "Rabba Main To Mar Gaya Oye" being a rage among people.

In 2012, he composed several successful songs for films like Players, Agent Vinod, Jannat 2 and Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Ferrari Ki Sawaari, where he finally get to work with him and Rajkumar Hirani. Later that year, he scored music for Barfi! which won him two Filmfare Awards.Barfi is considered to be one of the most critically acclaimed soundtrack album of his career. By 2013, his list included Race 2, Murder 3, Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, Dhoom 3 and Once Upon ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara which was his 100th movie as a Music Director in Bollywood.He started 2014 with compositions for Yaariyan and Shaadi Ke Side Effects. He then took a break in 2014.

He marked his return with three successful albums in 2015: Kabir Khan's Bajrangi Bhaijaan & Phantom and Rohit Shetty's Dilwale for which he was nominated for Filmfare awards.The Song, "Gerua" from Dilwale directly opened at the No. 1 position on the Radio Mirchi charts and became the first Bollywood song to cross 100 million views on Youtube in the shortest duration ever.It also ranked in the top slot in places like Malaysia, Oman, Sri Lanka and Bahrain. In 2016, He composed the song "Itni Si Baat Hai" for Azhar while the album of Dishoom was launched in July that year. All of his tracks in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil were chart-busters and were immensely popular among classes & masses. His upcoming films include Jagga Jasoos, Badtameez Dil, Tigers, Dangal, Raabta, Tubelight, The Ring and Golmaal Again.

Nandana Sen or Nandana Dev Sen is one of the talented actresses in the Bollywood. She was born and brought up in Kolkata. She hails from a Bengali Hindu family. Nobel Prize winner and famous economist Amartya Sen is his father and Nabanita Dev Sen the Padma Shri winner is her mother. She was brought up in various places like Europe, Amarica and India. Nandana learnt drama at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. She also went at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She went to Harvard University to study Literature.

Nandana began her film career at very early age when she played a lead in 'The Doll' a dark and disturbing psychodrama. She then appeared in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Black' with Rani Mukherjee and Amitabh Bachchan. She played the role of Rani's younger sister.

Nandana then appeared in 'The War Within' in 2005 a film based on terrorist themed psychological story. Since this film she has been recognized as a talented actress who can do a different and offbeat roles. Nandana next appeared in 'Tango Charlie' with Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Dutt and Bobby Deol. She faced the controversies due to her bold scenes in the movie.

Nandana was next seen in 'My Wife's Murder' with Boman Irani, Suchitra Krishnamurthy and Anil Kapoor. Later she feautured in 'Prince' ,'The Forest' ,'Strangers' , 'Rang Rasiya' and 'Marigold' etc. She also did some films in other languages. Nandana was also seen in the British Television series 'Sharpe' and Shamim Sarif's lesbian period drama 'The World Unseen'.

Nandana was recently seen in 'Jhootha hi Sahi' making a cameo.

Jayashri Ramnath; popularly known as Bombay Jayashri is an Indian Carnatic music vocalist and music composer. She is a disciple of violin maestro Lalgudi Jayaraman.

Jayashri is one of the leading playback singers of Tamil cinema and has worked with a number of composers including Harris Jayaraj, Ilaiyaraaja, A. R. Rahman, Vidyasagar and Yuvan Shankar Raja. She is currently nominated for Best Original Song at the 85th Academy Awards for the song \\\"Pi\\\'s Lullaby\\\" from Life of Pi.

Jayashri was born in Kolkata, into a family of music connoisseurs and musicians. While growing up in Mumbai, she started training in Carnatic music under the guidance of her parents Seetha and N. N. Subramaniam. Soon, she went on to learn with T. R. Balamani, and trained under her for a period of 10 years. Jayashri was also initiated into Hindustani music and trained under Mahavir Jaipurvale and Ajay Pohankar for about six years. When she moved to Chennai, she came under the guidance and mentorship of her guru Lalgudi Jayaraman. She also learnt the veena from G. N. Dhandapani Iyer. Jayashri has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from R.A. Podar College, Mumbai. She also has a Diploma in Music from Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, New Delhi.

Jayashri perfomed her first concert in 1982. She has performed at various festivals and venues all across India and in over twenty different countries. In India, she has performed in all the major cities. In New Delhi: The Rashtrapati Bhavan, Vishnu Digambar festival, Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Sri Shanmukhananda Sabha, India International Centre and Bhakti Utsav. She has performed also at Saptak, Ahmedabad; The Music Academy and Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai; ITC Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata;NCPA and Sri Shanmukhananda Sabha, Mumbai; Chowdiah Memorial Hall and Vasantha Habba, Bangalore; Kuthira Malika and Soorya Festival, Trivandrum, The Palace of Mysore and at the Matrimandir Amphitheatre at Auroville. Across India, she has performed for the Spirit of Unity Concerts for National Integration, SPIC MACAY Festivals and All India Radio\\\'s Sangeet Sammelan.

In the US, she has performed at the World Music Institute - New York; University of Arizona - Tucson; University of Texas - Austin; MIT – Boston; University of Louisiana - New Orleans; Cornell University and Amherst College.

Jayashri\\\'s Europe tours have included venues such as: Saddlers Wells and Queen Elizabeth Hall - London; Festival of Sacred Voices and Museum Rietberg - Switzerland; Vantaa Festival and The Russian Opera House - Helsinki, Finland; Théâtre de la Ville, Festival of Nantes, The Museum of Sculpture and Arts, Musee des Asiatiques and Citi de la Musique - in France; Casa da Musica a Porto - Portugal; Sala de Camera - Spain and at the University of Cologne.

She has also performed at The Royal Opera House - Durban, Monash University - Melbourne and Esplanade Theatre - Singapore.

Jayashri\\\'s jugalbandis with Ronu Majumdar and Shubha Mudgal have been very well received. She has dialogued with artistes in dance like Leela Samson and Priyadarsini Govind. Jayashri has sung Thirukkural and an Annamacharya verse in the prestigious audio autobiography - Wings of Fire of former President Shri Abdul Kalam. She performed in \\\'Bhaire Baanvari\\\', the story of Meera, conceptualized and directed by Gowri Ramnarayan. She also was a part of \\\'Mathemagician\\\' with actor V Balakrishnan and written by Gowri Ramnarayan. Jayashri also performed at the MTV Coke Studio(India) Season 1 with Ustad Rashid Khan and Richa Sharma.

Jayashri also conceptualized \\\'Listening to Life\\\' - A concert that features the journey of a musician as a lover of music.

Her quest to interact and experiment with various forms of music has resulted in collaborations with various eminent artistes from around the world. She has sung with Egyptian singer Hisham Abbas and Senegalese singer Thione Seck. In 2008, she was part of an Indo-Finnish venture ‘Red Earth and Pouring Rain’, where she sang Kuṟuntokai  — ancient poems from Sangam literature - with Avanti, a Philharmonic Orchestra from Finland and set to music by Eero Hämeenniemi. In 2012, she sang the poetry of Mirza Ghalib composed by Eero Hämeenniemi at the Vanta festival, Helsinki.

Jayashri is also a much sought after playback singer and her limited foray into film music has won her the Filmfare award for the popular number \\\'Vaseegara\\\' for the Tamil film Minnale, thus drawing a new class of listeners into the world of classical music. She sang in Mahesh Dattani\\\'s \\\'Morning Raga\\\' for the music of Amit Heri. She has also sung in various films in Hindi and Malayalam languages.

Jayashri has had the rare opportunity of working with Oscar-winning director Ang Lee, on his motion picture, Life of Pi.Which is nominated for 2013 oscar nomination for Music (Original Song)\\\"Pi\\\'s Lullaby\\\" from Life of Pi Music by Mychael Danna; Lyric by Bombay Jayashri. She has also composed music for actor Revathi\\\'s films \\\'Verukku Neer\\\' and Kerala Cafe.  In 2004, Jayashri composed music for \\\'Silappadhikaaram\\\' - a dance drama, commissioned by the Cleveland Cultural Alliance.

In 2001, Jayashri, along with Sanjay Subrahmanyan and T. M. Krishna wrote the book \\\'Prof. Sambamoorthy, the visionary musicologist\\\', detailing the life and times of Prof.Sambamoorthy - eminent Indian musicologist. The book was published to commemorate his birth centenary. In 2007, Jayashri, T. M. Krishna - leading Carnatic vocalist and Mythili Chandrasekar - Senior Vice President at JWT together wrote the book ‘Voices Within’, - a one-of-a-kind coffee table book that captures the pioneering spirit of 7 of the greatest Carnatic masters of the previous generations.

Jayashri featured in the first full length Carnatic music film ‘Margazhi Ragam’, conceptualized by Director P Jayendra. This was a ground breaking venture that showed Carnatic music in a whole different light. The movie, released in 2008, used the very best and latest technologies for video and sound recording. In her quest to reach music to the next generation, she along with T. M. Krishna and YACM initiated Svanubhava — a week-long Music Festival, exclusively for students of music, which continues to be conducted annually.

Another dimension of music which Jayashri is focused on is in exploring the therapeutic and healing value that music can generate. She has been working closely with institutions like Kilikili in Karnataka and Sankalp in Tamil Nadu which care for autistic children. This domain is a matter of serious engagement for Jayashri and her students. Some other institutions that Jayashri has worked with include: The Banyan Chennai (rehabilitation of homeless/mentally challenged women), Vasantha Memorial Trust (cancer patients), Stepping Stones Orphanage Home, Malaysia, Multiple Sclerosis Society of India, Bangalore and more.

Debashree Roy is a Bengali cinema actress. Having performed in more than hundred movies, Debashree has around forty awards on her name. Debashree is the winner of National Film Award for Best Actress for excellent performance in the movie 'Unishe April' in the year 2005. For Tamil film industry, she appeared with a different screenname, as 'Chintamani'. The actress was a part of some of the Tamil films.

The Bengali beauty was born on June 13, 1961 in Kolkata. Birendra Kishore Roy and Arati Roy are her parents. She was just five years old when she acted in a movie titled 'Pagol Thakur' in the year 1967. This movie was directorial venture by Harimoy Sen. 'Balok Gadhadhar' (1969) was the movie in which Debashree acted as a child artist. Debashree acted in the movie 'Kuheli' at the age of nine years. 'Kuheli' was directed by Tarun Majumdar.

Debashree used to study in APG School but had to discontinue her studies owing to her penchant for acting and dancing. This Bengali beauty is a professional Odissi dancer. Initially of her dancing career, Debashree was a stage performer. She gained dancing lessons from her mother and elder sister. 'Nataraj' is the name of her own dance group.

'Unishe April' was her famous film by Rituparno Ghosh. Debashree essayed the character of 'Satyavati' in the Indian epic Mahabharata, which was directed by B. R. Chopra. She is B-Town actress Rani Mukherjee's maternal aunt.

Some of the famous movies of Debashree include 'Shukno Lanka' (2010), 'Antore Bahire' (2012), 'Phulwari' (1984), 'Antarghaat' (2002), 'Aparanher Alo' (1989), 'Bishabriksha' (1983), 'Ek Je Aachhe Kanya' (2000), 'Kabhi Ajnabi The' (1985), 'Jiyo To Aise Jiyo' (1981), 'Dadar Kirti' (1980), 'Abaidha' (2002), 'Jibon Rang Berang' (2011) and '36 Chowringhee Lane' (1981). The brilliant actress is the winner of Kalakar Awards.

Debashree was the wife of Prasenjit Chatterjee, a Bengali actor. Reportedly, now they are not together. At present, Debashree is a Trinamool Congress MLA, who has contested West Bengal assembly elections in the year 2011.

Vani Ganapathy is an Indian classical danseuse. She is trained in Bharatanatyam and is considered a foremost exponent of the dance form.  In 1978, Vani married actor Kamal Haasan. They divorced ten years later ((m. 1978–1988)).


She started training at the age of three in Calcutta under T. A. Rajalakshmi. She moved to Bombay when she was young and started studying under Pill


She started performing when she was seven. She travelled across the world for her performances. She lives in Bangalore, where she set up Sanchari, a dance academy.

Moon Moon Sen is an Indian actress born on March 28, 1948 in Calcutta (now Kolkata). She is the daughter of renowned Bengali actress Suchitra Sen and Dibanath Sen. She belonged to the wealthiest family of Culcutta of early times. She has done her schooling from Loreto Convent, Shillong and Loreto House, Culcutta. She completed her graduation from Somerville College, Oxford and did her Masters in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

As a child she was interested in painting and has learnt the art from one of the greatest Indian artist Jamini Roy. Before venturing into films, she used to teach English Literature at Ballygunge Government High School.

After her marriage and in her days of motherhood she debuted in Bollywood with 'Andar Baahar', in the same year she marked her debut in Bengali Cinema with 'Baidurya Rahasya'. She has done number of films in Hindi and Bengali, also she has ventured in other regional Cinemas of Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada languages. She was much ahead for her times and didn't sway away from getting projected in the soap ads, which were then controversial in the era of 1980s.

In 2014, Moon Moon joined Indian politics with Trinamool Congress and won Lok Sabha Poll right in her first attempt.

On the personal front, Moon Moon got married to Bharat Dev Varma, a royal descendent of Tripura State and has two daughters with him, the actresses Raima Sen and Riya Sen. She gives the entire credit of her career to supporting husband allowed her to explore being protective at the same time.