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In the landscape of Indian cinema, Deepti Naval has always been something of an anomaly. To the viewer of the 1980s, she was the quintessential “girl next door”aka Miss Chamko, whose smile could light up a detergent commercial. An actor, painter, poet, photographer, and director, her personal narrative, revealed through her interviews and her 2022 memoir A Country Called Childhood, paints a picture of a fiercely independent, and deeply sensitive soul.
Deepti’s story begins in the narrow lanes of Amritsar, a city still breathing the heavy air of post-Partition history. Her father was an English professor and her mother a painter and teacher. By the age of ten, she knew she belonged to the screen. Driven by a childhood obsession with the Kashmir she saw in films, a thirteen-year-old Deepti once staged a daring escape. “My head was so full of those songs that I felt I just had to go to Kashmir. I actually left home. I didn’t reach my destination; instead, after a slap or two from the police at night, I was sent back home,” she told BBC. Years later, she would return to Amritsar and her childhood in her memoir A Country Called Childhood.
Deepti Naval with her parents. (Photo: Instagram/Deepti Naval)
‘Uncomplicated’ beginning, that led to struggles
Her father’s academic appointment in New York took the family to the United States in 1971. She studied Fine Arts, Psychology, and Astrology. It was only after completing her graduation that she gathered the courage to tell her parents she wanted to pursue acting. “Before that, it wasn’t even a question that I could raise this with them.”
At the Jean Frankel Institute in New York, she began studying television and camera work. As a student, she hosted a radio programme and found herself interviewing visiting Indian film legends like Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar with nothing more than a mic and a tape recorder.
Deepti Naval with Raj Kapoor. (Photo: Instagram/Deepti Naval)
When the opportunity came to return to India, she took it and started her struggle in Mumbai. “I didn’t tell my family; I just started struggling. I went to Rajshri Films… I met Hemant Da, who introduced me to Basu Chatterjee, who then introduced me to Hrishikesh Mukherjee. It was a lovely group. I felt these were the people I grew up watching; these were the people I wanted to work with. The luckily I met Sai Pranjape and Chashme Buddoor happened and I became an overnight star.”
Her early years unfolded with ease. Films like Saath Saath, Katha, and Angoor were warmly received, and her presence quickly became synonymous with the middle-class realism in Hindi cinema. “The beginning was uncomplicated. The struggle begins later — when you have to maintain success,” she said.
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Deepti worked with Farooq Sheikh in many films.
‘Dark period’ began after marriage with Prakash Jha
As the 80s progressed, Deepti grew disillusioned with “light-hearted” roles. She craved cinema that would “make a dent in the psyche.” She stopped signing films for six months, a move the industry interpreted as a lack of seriousness. At one point, while shooting Yeh Ishq Nahi Aasan, she realised that she had no work lined up afterwards. “I felt as though I wasn’t in the industry at all. I had returned from America for cinema — and suddenly there was nothing ahead. It felt like a dead end.”
Her creative renewal arrived with Kamla, where she met filmmaker Prakash Jha. The film aligned with the kind of cinema she had long wanted to pursue. “It felt like. this is the cinema I want to be part of.” Ankahi followed, and Naval entered what she considers her second, and more meaningful, phase as an actor.
Yet her marriage to Jha in the mid-1980s coincided with an industry mindset that didn’t give work to married actresses. “When I got married, Bollywood still ran on the same principle that said if a heroine gets married, her career is over; she has to close down shop. People would presume that you weren’t interested if you got married, and they would just stop approaching you for work. What followed was a rather dark period for me, which is hard for me to talk about, but I can do it.”
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Deepti married Prakash Jha in 1985.
Deepti went through a bad depression, divorce
The marriage soon faltered. She recalled how the two of them felt something was wrong with their marriage very early into the union and said, “There was a time right after my marriage that within a few years I realised that things weren’t working out like the way I thought they would. At one point, our relationship came to a place where the communication between us had completely crashed. When the marriage didn’t work out, and being the kind of person I am, I went through very bad depression. I was a student of psychology in school, and I had certain experiences, or witnessed them rather. I had a friend who used to have depressive episodes, and I saw the kind of characteristics she possessed and the kind of person she was. I connected the dots, and I realised after my marriage that I was going through something very identical.”
Deepti Naval with Prakash Jha. (Photo: Express Archive)
Drawing on her psychology background, she recognised the symptoms but felt trapped by her celebrity status. Public visibility made vulnerability difficult. “I couldn’t run to someone for help because I was conscious of what people would think. I decided I would help myself out of this. Every 20-25 days, I felt nothing was working… that my choice of career was a mistake.” She survived by retreating into her garage, filling canvases with paint and diaries with prose. “This sense of failure is precious because it is from this that we carve ourselves out as artists.”
Deepti says Prakash Jha is now her “very good friend and support system.” Both of them adopted a daughter named Disha Jha in 1988.
Deepti with her daughter Disha. (Photo: Instagram/Deepti Naval)
Lost second husband Vinod Pandit to cancer
After separating from Prakash Jha, Naval found companionship with actor and nephew of the classical vocalist Pandit Jasraj, Vinod Pandit. They worked together on the television series ‘Thoda Sa Aasmaan.’ Their relationship rekindled her creative energies. Their adventurous life together—trips to the hills, shared artistic pursuits, was cut short when Vinod passed away from cancer.
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Deepti Naval with Vinod Pandit. (Photo: Express Archive)
In an interview with Subhash K Jha, she said, “I was completely tied down in my relationship with Vinod Pandit. Even when he fell ill with cancer he brought out the best in me. After he came into my life, I had my first painting exhibition. He also encouraged me to resume photography and to write. He played my husband in my serial Thoda sa Aasman. Vinod and I traveled together often. We would go off to the hills of New York.”
She added, “I think I was running away from doing roles like Guddu (where I played Shah Rukh Khan’s mother). I was in love. He was just as adventurous as me. We would earn some money, spend it on a holiday and come back again. We were engaged for years. We were scared to marry, we didn’t want the romance to die out. We both had gone through failed marriages. I had to return to acting to pay for the hospital bills.”
Naval’s identity extends far beyond her filmography. Writing, painting, and photography remain central to her life. She continues to act, create, and runs a trust in Vinod Pandit’s memory.
English (US) ·