Tanushree Dutta

Born in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, Tanushree comes from a conservative Hindu Bengali family, and had her personality groomed according to strict social norms, resulting in her being shy and very introverted. Her father Tapan was an employee of the Life Insurance Corporation of India. Her mother is a housewife. Tanushree finished junior school in her hometown and completed high school studies in Pune. She dropped out of college to pursue a career in modeling which was a long-cherished dream. She first started modeling for ramp shows, local ad campaigns, print shoots etc., and worked part time as a sales junior executive at an event management company while she built her resume and portfolio as an amateur model and actor. Tanushree took part in several local beauty beauty pageants in Pune in 2003. She also appeared in music videos, stage shows, a Bengali show on local TV, Bangladeshi ad campaigns and several print and commercial assignments and finally went on to take part in and win the title at the Miss India pageant in 2004 which was a turning point in her career. In June 2004 she represented India amongst 133 countries at the Miss Universe pageant in Quito, Equador in South America. She placed amongst the top ten participants at the finals. During her growing-up years Tanushree was exposed to Indian classical music and dance and had been trained in painting and fine arts at the Rabindranath Tagore Society for Arts for a few years. From a very early age Tanushree had an inclination towards the performing arts. The title of Miss India opened doors for her and she started receiving offers from Bollywood as a lead actor. She also bagged several prestigious modeling assignments thereafter with top Indian designers and national brands. Her career as an actress started with the films 'Chocolate' and 'Ashique Banaya Apne' in 2005. 'Ashique Banaya Apne' went on to become a box office success and the music of the film broke all existing records in Indian cinema till date, whereas the film'Chocolate'received a lukewarm response and failed to create an impact at the box office. Still, the double impact of these films proved to be a perfect launch pad for Tanushree into Bollywood. She worked in several other feature films after that - romance, comedy, horror, thriller and action were the different genres that she covered in a short career span of five years from 2005-2010. Tanushree has very often made headlines for her red carpet appearances, personal life and the controversies very common in Bollywood. Putting up a brave front and maintaining a dignified silence, she has let her talent and work talk for her and eventually proven her detractors wrong by garnering rave reviews for her performances in latter films like Rokk, Apartment, and Rama the Saviour. Tanushree culminated her career with the film 'Rama the Saviour' that released in November 2010 and went on a self-imposed sabbatical for two and a half years.During this time she traveled extensively and pursued different and varied personal interests like spirituality, yoga and eastern mysticism as well as adventure sports. She rediscovered and reinvented herself through this whole process.She was back in the limelight in the spring of 2013 with stunning appearances at several high profile media and red carpet events.