Name: Sarita Choudury

Place of Birth: London, England

Occupation: Actress

Choudury is mainly recognised for her debut role as Mina in the Mira Nair-directed arthouse favourite Mississippi Masala. She played opposite Academy Award-winning thespian Denzel Washington in the film. She recently appeared in the first season of Showtime’s critically acclaimed thriller Homeland. Choudury played the wife of Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin). She was the recipient of a Doctor Bird Award in 2000.

Kinship with the ‘land of wood and water’

The actress’ parents met and wed in Lucea, Hanover while they were educators at Rusea’s High School in the 1960s. Her dad Prabhas and mum Julia taught science and French, respectively.

Notable public figures who were tutored by her father are former telecoms CEO, the Most Honourable Errald Miller (husband to Jamaica’s PM Portia Simpson Miller) and urologist Dr Keith Wedderburn, CEO and MD of Montego Bay Hospital.

Her father — a United Nations biologist — made significant contributions to the development of local aquaculture. In the 1970s he conducted studies and published findings on the larval culture and development of shrimp species founded in Jamaica.

The star often speaks of her childhood on The Rock during interviews. Choudury is the second of three children. She has two brothers, Chandra and Kumar, both of whom were born in Jamaica. She is of Anglo-Indian descent.

— Gorgette Beckford