6 Desi Actresses Who Hit Big Time Internationally Before Priyanka

A look at actresses of Indian descent who’ve made a walloping impact in the drawing rooms of the US and Europe

Archie Panjabi, Mindy Kaling and Indira Varma 

1. Archie Panjabi

Archie Panjabi in The Good Wife

She has kicked butt and hard. As Kalinda Sharma a law firm’s private investigator in the widely watched American TV series – The Good Wife – Archie Panjabi in black-leather skin-tight outfits, has skipped through bisexual liaisons, besides styming greasy gangsters and sly senators with jaw-dropping impunity.

Ever since the legal drama’s script organised the end of her tenure late last year, it hasn’t been the same. I, for one, care a damn for its current season. The Good Wife without Ms Panjabi is like smoke without fire.

The Emmy-award-winning actress – born Archana to parents Govind and Padma Panjabi who migrated to London -- certainly merits belated applause at a point when Priyanka Chopra, thanks to Quantico, is being singled out currently as the Asian face which has wowed global audiences on the TV series entertainment scene. Freida Pinto has grabbed her share of global limelight. And Nimrat Kaur has been noticed for her participation, in the role of a Pakistani extremist, in Homeland.

Sure, you can’t deny the former Miss World Peecee, Freida Pinto and Nimrat Kaur (in that order) their dues for making one helluva crossover – but please not at the expense of eclipsing other actresses of Indian descent who’ve made a walloping impact in the drawing rooms of America, Europe and belatedly in India.

If the name Archie is still associated purely with those Veronica-Betty entanglement comics in India, it’s because the actress like many of her peers, doesn’t have a Bollywood address.

Our filmmakers aren’t interested in Lady Archie. Presumably, neither has she sent out what’re quite cornily termed as ‘feelers’. In any case, at the age of 43, chances are that if she were to receive Hindi film offers – it would be roles of a venomous vixen or an NRI mummyji. Those I suspect, she’d refuse, eyes, ears and mind closed.

Her track record holds heft:  apni Archana has been seen in over 20 international films, as many high-TRP grabbers overseas, and is currently busy with the series Shetland and The Jury. Married to bespoke tailor Rajesh Nihalani, a groom selected by her family from within the Sindhi community, she could have rocked B-town but talent scouts just didn’t notice. Their’s, and therefore our loss, entirely.

Best-known films: Bend it Like Beckham, A Good Year, The Constant Gardener, The Lives of Others, Pan’s Labyrinth, Yasmin, A Mighty Heart, The Infidel.

Best-known TV series: The Good Wife, The Canterbury Tales, The Fall.

2. Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling in Mindy Project

According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), there at least 90 Indian actresses who’ve made an impact, minor and major, in Hollywood. Of them – Mindy Kaling, born to  Tamilian father Avu Chokalingam and Bengali mother Swati Roysircar, is the major domo of them all.

A one-woman force, a la Ekta Kapoor, the 36-year-old Mindy isn’t only a producer though. She’s  boss lady of an entertainment empire, plus a director, writer, actress and comedienne with her own long-running show.

Piquantly enough, the ongoing Mindy Project is inspired by the life of her mother, a doctor, and catches the producer-writer-actress as a romance-deprived woman coping with quirky co-workers at a medical facility in New York.

Best-known films: The 40-year-old Virgin, The Five Year Engagement, License to Wed, No Strings Attached, The Night Before.

Best-known series: The Office, The Mindy Project, The Muppets.

3. Indira Varma

Indira Varma in Game of Thrones

Over to Indira Varma, who projected an ethereal presence in two seasons of the  addictive series Game of Thrones. Born to an Indian father and a Swiss mother, she was discovered  two decades ago by Mira Nair for Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. While shooting for the erotic movie in Mumbai, she did photo-shoots for glossy magazines, and was expected to hop on to the Bollywood bandwagon but didn’t.

Now 46, she had opted to return to the UK, shuttles to the US and has played parts which aren’t categorised as ‘brown’ or ‘white’.

Best-known films: Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, Basic Instinct 2, Clancy’s Kitchen, Sixth Happiness, Jinnah, Bride and Prejudice.

Best know TV series: Rome, Everything Changes, Donovan, Bones, Luther, Hunted, Game of Thrones.

4. Sarita Chaudhary

Sarita Chaudhary and Mandy Patinkin in Homeland

Another Mira Nair find, Sarita Choudhary, was introduced in Mississippi Masala in the company of Denzel Washington. Born to  Prabhas Chandra Choudhury, a scientist and a British mother, Sarita lately fetched up as the Punjabi bride of Ben Kingsley in Learning to Drive.

Followers of Homeland recognise her as the Indian homesick wife of Mandy Patinkin.

Best-known films: Mississippi Masala, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, She Hate Me, Lady in the Water, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts I and II.

Best-known series: Kings, Homeland, Blindspot.

5. Nazneen Contractor

Nazneen Contractor at the DVD release of Star Trek: Into Darkness

At the age of 33, Nazneen Contractor born in Mumbai now settled in Canada, has established herself steadily but surely on the international scene.

Best-known films: Star Trek into Darkness, Séance the Summoning.

Best-known series: 24, Revenge, Bones, Person of Interest, Covert Affairs, Scorpion, Castle.

6. Parminder Kaur Nagra

Kiera Knightley and Parminder Kaur Nagra in Bend It Like Beckham

Parminder Kaur Nagra, daughter of Sukha and Nashuter Nagra, factory workers from Punjab, at 40, has appeared in the Punjabi film Dushmani Jattan Di.

However, that’s it on the homefront.  She zips between her home in London to the US for projects which have projected her as an independent, free-spirited woman.

Best-known films: Bend it Like Beckham, Ella Enchanted, In Your Dreams

Best-known series: The Blacklist, Alcatraz, E R, NCIS: Los Angeles.

So even as Priyanka Chopra does her number, the tribe of crossover actresses of Indian descent booms on big-time.

(The writer is a film critic, filmmaker, theatre director and weekend painter.)