Monica Bedi

Monica Bedi (born 18 January 1975) is an Indian actress, television presenter,^{[citation needed]} and television contestant. She debuted in Hindi films in the mid-1990s.

Early life

Bedi was born to Dr. Prem Kumar Bedi and Shakuntala Bedi on January 18, 1975 in a village named Chabbewal in the district Hoshiarpur, Punjab. Her parents migrated to Norway in 1979, when she was 4 years old.^{[citation needed]} She went to school in Norway. When she finished college, She left to England to study literature at Oxford University in United Kingdom and completed her acting education at Delhi University.^[1]

She got into films after she met producer/actor Manoj Kumar while she was studying English literature at Oxford in 1995.^[1]

Career

Monica Bedi got her first break in Tollywood in the film Taj Mahal in 1995 produced by D. Ramanaidu. Apart from Taj Mahal, he had also cast her in another film Sivayya with Dr. Rajasekhar as hero. Noticed in a video album by Muppalaneni Shiva, the director had recommended Monica to be cast in Taj Mahal. She was cast as a heroine in another film he directed - Speed Dancer - produced by T V D Prasad,^[2] after she shot into fame with her debut Hindi film, Suraksha opposite Saif Ali Khan.

Monica Bedi is most known for her films such as Jaanam Samjha Karo, where she was in the lead role with Urmila Matondkar, opposite Salman Khan, Jodi No.1 with Sanjay Dutt and Govinda, Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat with Arjun Rampal and Aftab Shivdasani, Suraksha opposite Saif Ali Khan and Sunil Shetty, and Tirchi Topi Wale. However, she had a several-years long hiatus from showbiz after she was arrested in Portugal and served jail sentences in Portugal and India.

Bedi was an inmate in Big Boss Season 2, a television-based reality show on Colors. She was one of the contestants of the reality dance show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 3 on Sony Entertainment television channel where she proved to be a good dancer. Her choreographer partner was Javed Sanadi. Monica was a contestant on NDTV Imagine's Desi Girl reality show.

She sung the divine chants ‘EkOnkar’ for spiritual music album on Universal Music. Ek Onkaar launched in Chandigarh. It is a spiritual offering where Monica has rendered her voice. The album is a compilation of the revered mantra of the Sikhs called ‘Mool Mantra’ which is one of the holiest chants from the holy book of Sikhism ‘Guru GranthSaheb’.^[3]

She is playing the title role in a Tamil movie as Devadasi. The story revolves around an aged use of Devadasi complement as well as Monica plays a Devadasi from Peddhapuram area in Andhra Pradesh.

She acted in a Punjabi movie titled Sirphire as the main female lead opposite Priyanshu Chatterjee, Preet Harpal and Roshan Prince, directed by Harjith Singh Ricky and produced by Gurpreet Singh Sidhu, which released in August 2012. She also won PTC Award for best debut in this film.

Bigg Boss (Season 2)

On 17 August 2008 (telecast date), Bedi was ushered into the Bigg Boss (Season 2) as one of the 13 contestants in the second season of the Indian version of Big Brother. She was one of the most liked.^[4]

Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa (Season 3)

Monica paired with Javed Sanadi for the 3rd season of the show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa. She was eliminated in round 9 although her improvement was highly appreciated by the judges. She regarded the show as a new beginning of her life and career.

Dil Jeetegi Desi Girl

Monica was a contestant on NDTV Imagine's reality show Dil Jeetegi Desi Girl. She was the sixth to get eliminated as the contestants objected to her stay. She was the favourite of the panchayet and villagers.

SaraswatiChandra

Saraswatichandra serial on Star Plus Directed By Sanjay Leela Bhansali playing Guman the antagonist.

Jail sentence

In September 2002, she was arrested along with fugitive underworld don Abu Salem by the Lisbon police for entering Portugal with forged documents.^[5] They served jail sentence in Portugal.^[6] After years of legal battle, they were deported to India on 11 November 2005, after India promised Portugal that Salem would not receive the death sentence.

On 29 September 2006, an Indian Court convicted Monica Bedi for passport forgery. CBI had filed a case against Bedi under section 420 (cheating), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and section 12 of the Passport Act for procuring a passport on a fictitious name.^[7] In November 2010, the Supreme Court of India upheld the conviction of Bedi, but reduced the jail term to the period that she had already served.^[8]

Filmography

Year	Film	Language	Cast	Role	Directed by
1994	Main Tera Aashiq	Hindi
1995	Tajmahal	Telugu	Srikanth, Srihari, Sanghavi, D Ramanaidu, Nutan Prasad
1995	Surakshaa	Hindi	Saif Ali Khan, Aditya Pancholi and Sunil Shetty	Kiran	Raju Mavani
1995	Aashique Mastane	Hindi	Maya Alagh, Vikas Anand, Mohnish Bahl, Beena, Prem Chopra, Harish, Ayesha Jhulka, Abhishek Kapoor, Viju Khote,	Kajal	Ajay Kashyap
1996	Khilona	Hindi	Aditya Pancholi, Shakti Kapoor, Mohan Joshi, Ayub Khan, Deepak Shirke	Kajal	Deepak Pawar
1996	Soggadi Pellam	Telugu	Mohan Babu, Ramya Krishnan, Kasthuri		Muthyala Subbaiah
1997	Ek Phool Teen Kante	Hindi	Vikas Bhalla		Anup Malik
1997	Jeeyo Shaan Se	Hindi	Dharmendra, Ayub Khan, Jay Mehta, Vikas Bhalla, Neena Gupta		Talat Jani
1997	Tirchhi Topiwale	Hindi	Inder Kumar, Chunky Pandey,Ritu Parna, Johny Lever, Anupam Kher, Kader Khan, Rakesh Bedi, Reema Lagoo, Alok Nath, Satish Shah, Jackie Shroff	Sanam Oberoi	Nandeem Khan
1997	Circus Sattipandu	Telugu	Ali, Duvvasi Mohan		C H Srinivas
1998	Sivayya	Telugu	Rajasekhar, Sanghavi, Kota Sankar Rao, Ravi Babu, Venu Madhav, Srihari, Rallapalli		R Suresh Varma
1998	Choodalani Vundi	Telugu	Chiranjeevi, Soundarya, Anjala Zaveri, Prakash Raj		Gunasekhar
1998	Zanjeer	Hindi
1999	Kalicharan	Hindi	Dharmendra
1999	Nannaseya Hoove	Kannada	Jaggesh, Jayanthi, C.R.Simha, Avinash		E.Channagangappa
1999	Sikander Sadak Ka	Hindi	Mithun Chakraborty, Manik Bedi, Samrat Mukerji		T L V Prasad
1999	Jaanam Samjha Karo	Hindi	Salman Khan, Urmila Matondkar	Monica
1999	Kaala Samrajya	Hindi	Sunil Shetty	Monica K. Singh
1999	Speed Dancer	Telugu	Raghava Lawrence
1999	Lohpurush	Hindi	Dharmendra, Jay Prada, Sunil Shetty, Aftab Shivdasani, Dalip Tahil, Anjan Srivastav		Hersh Kinnu
2001	Jodi No. 1	Hindi	Sanjay Dutt, Govinda, Twinkle Khanna	Rinky	David Dhawan
2001	Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat	Hindi	Arjun Rampal, Kirti Reddy, Sunil Shetty, Aftab Shivdasani, Dalip Tahil, Anjan Srivastav	Maya Dhillon	Rajiv Rai
2003	Tada	Hindi	Dharmendra, Sharad Kapoor, Mukesh Khanna, Sadashiv Amrapukar		Sisir Mishra
2011	Devadasiyin Kathai	Tamil	Swathi Varma, Mukesh Rishi	Renuka
2012	Parichaya	Nepali	Nikhil Upreti,Monika Bedi	Rekha			2012	Hridoye Lekho Naam	Bengali
2012	Sirphire	Punjabi	Roshan Prince, Preet Harpal, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Gurleen Chopra	Simran	Harjit Singh Ricky
2014	Himmatwala (2014 Movie)	Punjabi	Gavie Chahal	Gurinder	Daljit Singh Baath