Rachna Banerjee (born Jhumjhum Rakesh Banerjee; 2 October 1974) also known as Rachana, is an Indian actress, entrepreneur and television presenter. She is known for her works in Bengali and

Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...

film industries and has also appeared in several

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

, Tamil and Kannada films. Being crowned the 1994 Miss

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

, she has also won five beauty contests in

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

including Miss Beautiful Smile at the Miss India contest.

Early life

Banerjee was born in

, West Bengal, India, and was her parents' only child. Her father was Upamanyu Banerjee. Her original name was Jhumjhum Banerjee, and was changed to Rachana by Sukhen Das, the director of her debut film

Daan Pratidaan Daan may refer to: People *Daan (given name), Dutch short form for Daniel *Saumya Daan (born 1982), Indian voice actor *Serge Daan (1940–2018), Dutch zoologist * DAAN, a Belgian band led by Daan Stuyven * Da'an, a character in the television seri ...

(1993).

Career

Banerjee won the Miss

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...

contest in 1994 when she was still in her second year of graduation course from South City College. She entered several beauty pageants before starting her acting career and was often declared 'Miss Beautiful Smile'. In 1994 she missed out of the Miss India contest grand finale where Madhu Sapre was crowned the title. Banerjee's breakthrough role was with director Sukhen Das who changed her name to Rachana (which Das found in 'Rabindra Rachanabali').. Her biggest success in film career comes when she played the female lead opposite Siddhant Mahapatra in about 40 movies.she appeared against Amitabh Bachchan in the movie Sooryavansham one of the cult movies of its era. She has appeared in 35 Bengali films with her favorite actor Prosenjit Chatterjee.

Hosting Didi No. 1

Apart from acting, Banerjee is also hosting the popular Bengali non-fiction TV show, ''

Didi No. 1 ''Didi No. 1'' () is a Bengali television game show for women launched in 2010. The show airs on Zee Bangla six days a week and also available on ZEE5 digitally. It is the second longest-running Bengali television series by episode count. Bac ...

'', which is aired on Zee Bangla on weekdays. On 5 April 2013 a fire broke out in the

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

of ''

'' at Tollygunge, and she fainted following a panic attack and was rushed to a city

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergenc ...

(Aurobindo Seva Sadan) immediately.

Personal life

Rachna Banerjee married Probal Basu in 2007. They have a son named Pronil Basu.

Filmography

List of reality shows

Awards

* Kalakar Awards, Bharat Nirman Award, Odia State Film Award, Special Film Award by West Bengal State Govt, Tele Samman Award, ETV Bangla Film Award, Zee Bangla Sonar Songsar Award 2015 for ''

'' & ''Tumi Je Amar'' * Odisha State Film Award (Special Jury) – ''

Suna Harini ''Suna Harini'' is a 1999 Oriya film directed by Himanshu Parija. The film's music director was Manmath Misra. The film starring Rachana Banerjee and Siddhanta Mahapatra in the lead roles. The film was a box office success. Cast * Suresh Ba ...

'' (1999) * Odisha State Film Award for Best Actress – ''Mo Kola To Jhulana'' (2001)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Banerjee, Rachna Living people Actresses in Bengali cinema Actresses in Odia cinema Actresses in Tamil cinema Actresses in Kannada cinema Indian film actresses Actresses from Kolkata Kalakar Awards winners 20th-century Indian actresses 21st-century Indian actresses Actresses in Telugu cinema 1974 births