Happy Birthday Deepti Naval!

On the 3rd of February we celebrated the birthday of the contemporary Indian American actress Deepti Naval, who has worked in over 70 hindi movies which also consist of art house and independent films.

Naval was born to Uday C. Naval and Himadri Naval in Amritsar, Punjab in a Maheshwari Marwari family. She has always kept her personal life private and little is known about her life before entering movies, though we do know that she first went to the City University of New York and then to Hunter College in Manhattan for a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts. She married filmmaker Prakash Jha and they adopted a daughter, Disha, however later the two got divorced. She was also said to be involved with Nana Patekar for some time and then was engaged to Vinod Pandit before he died.

Naval began her career in Jallian Wala Bagh (1977) in a supporting role and then in Junoon (1978) before finally getting a main role in Ek Baar Phir (1980). This started her career as a contemporary, sensitive actress who starred in many different art films of the 1980s, such as Chashme Buddoor (1981), Saath Saath (1982) and Mirch Masala (1987). Her films were often with Farooq Shaikh and they became known as a film couple that always brought different, but hit films. Naval played main roles for many years before moving on to side character roles in movies such as Shakti: The Power (2002), Tell Me O Kkhuda (2011), Aurangzeb (2013), B.A. Pass (2013), and the very recent Yaariyan (2014) where she appeared as a girls hostel warden. 

In April 2007, Naval was awarded with the Tribute Honoree of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. Naval has not only made a name for herself as an actress but a director as well.. In 2009, she directed a movie Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Baarish which starred Manisha Koirala and Rajit Kapur as well as her nephew Sanaj Naval. She has also been known as an artist as well as poet. In 1981, she published "Lamha Lamha", a collection of her Hindi poems and then "Black Wind" in 2004.

To celebrate her birthday we bring you a list of some of her popular songs: