Genelia D'Souza

Genelia is all sugar and spice, purring in content, as her ‘meow’ quotient in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na has made her the cynosure of all eyes.

Ms.Congeniality
Genelia D’Souza, also known as Harini to close friends, was born on 5 August 1987 in England to a Mangalore Catholic family. Her parents are Jennifer and Neil. She has an older brother. She grew up in Mumbai.

Her school days were spent in Apostolic Carmel High School, Mumbai while she spent her college days at St.Andrews College to pursue a degree in management studies. She is known to be a state level athlete and a national level player.

Her claim to fame started with commercials like Parker pen with Amitabh Bacchan and Fair & Lovely with Krishnamachari Srikanth.

She is supposed to be dating Riteish Deshmukh.

Meowww
In 2003, she started her career with three movies – the Hindi movie Tujhe Meri Kasam; the Tamil movie Boys; the Telugu movie Satyam. She worked opposite Ritesh Deshmukh in Tujhe Meri Kasam, which was a remake of Telugu movie, Nuvve Kavali, and saw an average response. Boys, on the other hand, was a hit, as was Satyam.

She built up her popularity in the South with Telugu movies like Samba (2004), Subash Chandra Bose (2005), and Sye (2005). She was recognized for her performance in Bommarillu in 2006 with several awards. The movie was remade successfully in Tamil as Santosh Subramaniam (2008).

The year 2008 saw her trying to pave her way into Bollywood in Priyadarshan’s Mere Baap Pehle Aap and the year’s hit Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. The movie which was the debut of Aamir Khan’s nephew Imran Khan received a lot of publicity and her role as the unrestrained Meow shined through.

Following this success, Genelia was seen in Sasirekha Parinayam (2009), Life Partner (2009), and Katha (2009).

What’s Next?
Genelia replaced Jiah Khan in Chance Pe Dance (2010) with Shahid Kapoor. She plays a choreographer in this movie. Next in line is Hook Ya Crook, a movie about cricket and criminals. In the Telugu movie, Orange, she will be see with Ram Charan Teja. In Anees Bazmee’s It’s My Life she is cast opposite Harman Baweja. It is a remake of Bommarillu.