Ashwini Kalsekar is an Indian actress who works predominantly in the Marathi and Hindi television and film industry.
She is known mostly for her collaboration with Hindi movies directors Sriram Raghavan, Rohit Shetty, and Ram Gopal Varma. She played a cop in the popular TV show CID. Her first lead role on television came in 1999 when she starred in Zee TV's popular science fiction comedy serial Mr. Gayab. Her villainous outing as Shalaka Catwoman in the children's superhero serial Shaktimaan made her popular as the first Indian Catwoman.She also played role in achanak 37 saal baad in Sony tv year 2004 [citation needed]. She also played popular negative roles as Jigyasa Walia in Ekta Kapoor's soap operaKasamh Se,[1] Sikka Thakuriaan in Afsar Bitiya, Maham Anga in Jodha Akbar and Saudamini, an evil witch, in Kavach. She also featured as a judge in the Marathi reality show "Fu bai fu" in 2011.
She debuted in Tollywood like her husband Murali Sharma with Badrinath. Since 2019, she focused on OTT with Zee5's series "Chargesheet: The Shuttlecock Murder", in the MX Player web series "Cheesecake" as Chaaru, an animal communicator, which premiered in December 2019, in 36 Farmhouse on Zee5 and in the Hotstar Specials show Rudra: The Edge of Darkness.
Early life
Ashwini Kalsekar was born into a Marathi family in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Her father Anil Kalsekar was a bank employee. Ashwini completed her B.A. from Mumbai and graduated in 1991. She pursued theatre from 1991 to 1994 after her studies. From 1992 to 1993, she was studying under actress Neena Gupta to pursue her dream to become an actress. She also trained under Muzammeel Vakil, a theatre acting coach, from 1992 to 1995. Ashwini is also a trained Kathak dancer.[2]
In 1996, Ashwini performed in the Marathi film Tula Jhapar La. This was followed by a number of films in Marathi where she appeared in supporting roles.
In 2012, she was a part of a Marathi comedy reality show, Fu Bai Fu. She was the judge of the show, along with Swapnil Joshi and Sanjay Jadhav, for 2 seasons.