Churni Ganguly

Biography

hurni Ganguly (née Banerjee) is an Indian actress and director who mainly works in Bengali movies and television productions. She received the Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards in 2005 in the best actress category for the movie Waarish, in which she played a single mother's role. She won two National Film Awards for her directorial ventures Nirbashito and Tarikh.

After spending her childhood in Kurseong, she came to Kolkata and got admitted to Jadavpur University. While studying at Jadavpur University, she joined a theatre group as an actress. Then she moved to Mumbai and acted in a few television serials. Later, she came back to Kolkata and started acting in Bengali films.

Churni Ganguly (born Churni Banerjee) spent her childhood in Kurseong. Her parents were school teachers. She was a student at Dow Hills boarding school. In spite of being at boarding school, Churni and a few other girls were allowed to stay at their homes with their parents.

 Churni's father, whom Churni described as "extremely caring, but a rather serious person" encouraged Churni to do well in studies, and especially sports. But Churni did not feel the urge to concentrate on sports. Churni was a good student at school, but she never thought that she had to secure rankings in examinations.

Churni was a student at Jadavpur University when she became a part of Aurat. In 1987, she started a theatre troupe with Suman Mukhopadhyay and her future husband Kaushik Ganguly. Churni is married to Bengali film director Kaushik Ganguly and has a son – Ujaan Ganguly.

Firstly, she tried her luck in the Hindi film and television industry. She shifted to Mumbai and acted in Zee TV's first daily soap, Raahat, and stayed there for the next two years. In those days, when she was in her twenties, she acted in Choti si Asha, in which she played a 35-year-old mother's character who matured to about 60. Later she decided to come back to Kolkata.