Bhavana Menon Ideal Photos

Updated: Tuesday, September 15, 2020, 19:34 [IST]

Karthika Menon (born 6 June 1986), better known by her stage name Bhavana, is a film actress from Kerala, who works in South Indian film industry. She has acted in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu language films, and has established herself as a bankable lead actress. Bhavana made her acting debut in the Malayalam film Nammal in 2002, for which she won the Kerala State Film Award – Special Mention. In a career spanning over a decade, she has appeared in over 80 films and has won two Kerala State Film Awards.

Bhavana was born as Karthika Menon on 6 June 1986 in Thrissur district, Kerala, as the daughter of Pushpa and assistant cinematographer G. Balachandran. She has an elder brother, Jayadev. She studied at Holy Family Girls' High School, Chembukkavu, Thrissur.

Bhavana has described herself as a restless person and someone who's "hard to handle". She grew up with a dream to become an actress. As a five-year-old, she used to imitate actress Amala's scenes from the Malayalam film Ente Sooryaputhrikku in front of the mirror and was even willing to jump from a building and break her arm, like Amala's character, did in the film.

At age 16, she debuted in the Malayalam film Nammal taking the stage name Bhavana (Malayalam ഭാവന "enlightenment, imagination") opposite newcomers Sidharth Bharathan, Jishnu and Renuka Menon. The film was a big success and she got several offers in Malayalam. She won many honors and a Kerala State Special Jury Award for the film. Bhavana was an 11th Standard student when she got her break in the film.

In 2010, she starred in her first Kannada film alongside Puneeth Rajkumar, Jackie which was a blockbuster. Following the film's huge success, the film was dubbed into Telugu and Malayalam. Bhavana was said to star with Emraan Hashmi and Amitabh Bachchan in a Bollywood film. Her second Kannada film Vishnuvardhana with Sudeep opened to a big response. She appeared in the Malayalam films Ozhimuri and Trivandrum Lodge in 2012, and Honey Bee and Ezhamathe Varavu in 2013. She played Roshni Mathew, a single mother employed in an IT company, in Shyamaprasad's Ivide, a crime thriller based on the serial killing of IT techies in major US cities.