!!happy birthday Baa aka Sarita Joshi !!s

Sarita Joshi (nee Bhosle) (born 17 October 1941) is an Indian stage, television and film actress, and is a veteran actress of Gujarati theatre and Marathi theatre and also Marathi cinema. She is best known for her role as Godavari Thakkar in the hit Star Plus TV series Baa Bahoo Aur Baby.

In 1988, she was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Acting in Gujarati by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama.

Sarita was born in a middle class Marathi family in Pune, though she grew up in Vadodara.Her father Bhimrao Bhosle was a barrister. Her mother Kamlabai Rane was from Goa. She began acting on stage at the age of nine along with her sister, due financial problems that her family found itself in, though she started with traditional theatre, she soon started working with noted artists like Shanta Apte.

After working as child actor for six years Joshi got her first lead role at age 16. She went to act with Indian National Theatre, and it was here that she met her future husband Pravin Joshi.^[1] She made television debut in the 1980s, with TV series, Titliyan (Butterflies) directed by Nadira Babbar, followed by numerous series in 90's, including, Hasratein.^[1]

She is best known for portraying a tough yet fair matriarch in the household hit serial Baa Bahoo Aur Baby,^[2] which stopped on 28 March 2009 for a temporary seasonal break but was renewed back recently on popular demand. In 2009 Joshi played in the serial Kuchh Kook Hota Hai as Rani on 9X. Joshi played Asha Parekh's friend in movie "kanyadan". she also portrayed Abhishek Bachchan's mother in Guru directed by filmmaker Mani Ratnam. She also played a central character in the 2008 movie Dasvidaniya. Joshi then travelled to the United States that year to be part of the crossover film, Bollywood Beats, starring alongside Lilette Dubey and Pooja Kumar, in a film directed by Mehul Shah. Out of all the mediums she holds a special corner for theatre and stage performances. She claims that the joy of performing on stage is any time better than anything else and that theatre will always be her first love.^{[citation needed]}

Now she is appearing in Star plus Chand Chupa Badal Mein which is produced by Rajan Shahi as caring, confident Grand mother of female lead Nivedita played by Neha sargam. Her recent film Gangoobai has just been released in theatres in January 2013 in which she plays the protagonist. She is often confused with actress Padma Rani who played the role of Aamir Khan's mother in the movie Dil in early 90's. She also played the character of biological mother of Gopikishan Vaishnav played by Gaurav Khanna in Sony Byaah Hamari Bahoo ka.Now she is playing character of Hansa Govardhandas Parekh Baa main antagonist in Colors Ekta Kapoor's serial Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi.

AWARDS

In 1988, she was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Acting in Gujarati.^[3][4] In 2007, for her role as Godavari Thakkar in Baa Bahoo Aur Baby, she was awarded a Best Actress in a Drama award by the IDEA Indian Television Academy Awards.

Other awards include:

• Lifetime Achievement Award for Gujarati Theatre in 2007 by Transmedia (Organization felicitating artist on Gujarati Theatre & TV)
• 'Favorite Actor' for Baa Bahoo Aur Baby by Star Parivar continuously for 4 years.
• Mumbai Nagar Palika - Gold Medal
• Marathi Natya Parishad - 1988
• Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar - 1990
• Bank of India- Utkrushta Puraskar - 1997-98
• Indo-American Society Award for Excellence - 1998
• Gujarat Government Award - 1998
• Bruhad Mumbai Gujarati Samaj - 2000
• National School of Drama - (Delhi 2001)
• RAPA Award - 2008
• Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar - 2010