Barkha Bisht

Barkha Bisht? She’s one of those faces you’ve probably seen a dozen times across Hindi and Bengali screens, and honestly, she’s been everywhere since the early 2000s. Her start came with Ekta Kapoor’s Kitni Mast Hai Zindagi back in ‘04—classic, right? She was sharing the screen with folks like Karan Singh Grover and Panchi Bora. Not exactly a low-key debut. Growing up, Barkha bounced around military bases because her dad was a colonel, so places like Kolkata were home. She’s originally from Dehradun, Uttarakhand, and—get this—her sisters went into hotel management and fashion design. Talk about a family that covers all the bases. School was at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Fort William, then she grabbed a B.Com from Symbiosis in Pune. Her personal life? She married Indraneil Sengupta in 2008, that’s after two years of dating and a couple of projects together. They were basically one of those on-screen-off-screen couples till they split in 2021. On the career front, she’s done the TV circuit—think Kavyanjali, Sssshh... Phir Koi Hai—and then stepped into films like Raajneeti (that dance bit? Yeah, that was her). She jumped into Bengali cinema too with Dui Prithibi in 2010, just for a dance scene, but it opened doors. Roles in Ami Shubhash Bolchi, Villain, Samrat & Co., and even PM Narendra Modi followed. She even popped up in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Ram-leela. Lately, she’s all over web series—Mukhbir, Duranga, Swaraj. By the way, she snagged the Boroplus Gold Award for Most Fit Actress in 2017. Not bad, right?