In Malayalam she rose to fame with her role as Mammootty's mother in Rajamanikyam.

She became a house-hold name in Kerala playing the villainous mother-in-law character in the Malayalam serial Sthreedhanam.

She was born in a Sankethi Brahmin family to M. K. Vinayak and Saraswathi, as the youngest of two children at Hassan.

[3] She is married to Gurudas Shenoy, a Kannada Film & Television Producer.

Gurudas & Chitra Shenoy together run two television production companies - Dakshin Videotech and Good Company Productions.