She was also featured in Saru Maini's video "Dil De Diya Tha (Sutta Mix)"[citation needed] before starting to work in Indian films.

[4] Her father Ethiraj works for Air India and was a tennis coach and her mother Purnima,[5] was a school teacher.

[8] At the age of 18, she met a model co-ordinator at the wedding of her cousin in Chennai, who called her for a screen test for a feature film.

[10] She then appeared in UMI10's music video "Kaliyon Ka Chaman", directed by Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru, which she says happened by accident.

It was followed by lead roles in Classic Dance of Love (2005), which featured her as a dancer, and Rain: The Terror Within... (2005), in which she played a blind author.