Asha Saini

Career

Born in Chandigarh, UT to an army officer, Flora began her schooling in Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir and continued her education in The Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan Delhi. She was the favorite student of Accounts teacher Lala. Her family moved to Kolkata then, where she started pursuing a modeling career. She participated at the Miss Kolkata beauty pageant contest. Flora made her acting debut in the 1999 Telugu film Prema Kosam in which she enacted the lead female role. The film producer of her first film rechristened her as Asha Saini, while years later she would adopt a new screen name, Mayuri, as per an astrologer’s advice, before eventually reverting to her original name.

Flora subsequently played supporting roles in more than a dozen Telugu films in the next three years, with her appearance in the film Narasimha Naidu (2002), which went on to become highly successful, being the most notable, which led to her being referred to as "Lux Papa" thereafter. In 2002, she debuted in Hindi, starring in the T. P. Aggarwal-produced Bharat Bhagya Vidhata. Her second Hindi film Love in Nepal (2004) saw her pairing with popular playback singer Sonu Nigam, which too was produced by T. P. Aggarwal. Flora starred in several Kannada films, too, including Giri starring Srinagar Kitty and Nammannna starring Sudeep.

In March 2008, she was arrested in Chennai for supposedly having forged visa documents, and was subsequently banned from the Tamil film industry. She claimed innocence, and the ban was lifted a couple of weeks later.

Flora had three of her films, Broker (Telugu), Vismaya Pramaya and Vah Re Vah (both Kannada) releasing on 31 December 2010, a rare occurrence that secured her an entry in the Limca Book of Records for the most number of film releases on one day. In 2010, Flora Saini was honoured with the Uttarakhand Ratan Award. She has also received The Great Daughter of Soil Award in Mauritius for her work towards the poor and helpless.