By Jagmohan Singh Barhok
On Her 41st Birth Anniversary
Shreya Saran Bhatnagar, born 11 September 1982 at Haridwar to parents Pushpendra and Neerja Saran Bhatnagar, is one of the well known South Indian & Bollywood actresses. The tall, svelte & glamorous babe, Saran graduated from the Lady Sri Ram College, New Delhi.
Gifted with shapely curves & contours, it did not take long for the cute belle to establish herself as a model. A brand ambassador of many health & beauty products and parapheranalias, Shreya came into media lime light with Telugu feature film “Santosham” (2002) produced by K. L. Narayana & ably directed by Dasarath featuring Nagarjuna Akkineki, Prabhu Deva, Gracy Singh and of course Sareya Saran, the subject of this write up. R. P. Patnaik’s music was the star attraction and it turned out to be a blockbuster. She was nominated for the CineMAA Award for Best Actress. The film was subsequently dubbed in Tamil and in Hindi titled “Pehli Nazar Ka Pehla Pyaar”. Interestingly, it was also remade in Bengali under the title “Bandhan”.Shriya earlier debuted with a Telugu film ” Ishtam” opposite Charan.It was directed by Vikram Kumar & released in December 2001.Immediately after the release she signed four movies including “Nuvve Nuvve”,enacting a millionaire daughter followed by “Santosham”.
“Tujhe Meri Kasam”( 2003), starring debutants Ritesh Deshmukh and Genelia D’Souza in the lead was Shriya’s first Hindi film in a supportive role.
Shriya Saran was paired opposite Rajinikanth in S. Shankar’s “Sivaji”,said to be the most most expensive film in Indian cinema and went on to become the highest grossing Tamil film at that time.She made a comeback to Hindi cinema with Mohit Suri’s “Awarapan”, playing a Muslim .It was followed by her debut in an American movie with James Dodson’s “The Other End of the Line” (2008)in which she played an Indian woman who works in a call centre.In 2012, she was cast in the British–Canadian film “Midnight’s Children”, directed by Deepa Mehta,, based on Salman Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name, for which she received international critical acclaim. She achieved further commercial success by starring in films such as “Pavitra” (2013) and “Chandra” (2013). In 2014, Saran starred in the critically acclaimed Telugu film “Manam”, which won her high critical acclaim and was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress-Telugu Award at the 62nd Filmfare Awards South.It was followed by Hindi film opposite Ajay Devgan titled “Drishyam”,which was another successful film.
