Ms Mira Nair was born in 1958 in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa. Her parents are from Punjab. At the age of 13, she attended a boarding school in Shimla, where she became a passionate student of dramatics and acted in school theatre productions. After graduating from New Delhi, she went to United States on a theater scholarship to Harvard.

Mira began her career as a documentarist and later turned to commercial films. The film titled 'India Cabaret' brought her the American Film Festival Award for the best documentary of 1985. She won her first film award, the 'Golden Camera' from the Cannes Film Festival for her renowned film 'Salaam Bombay' and this film was nominated for Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1988.  Her movies, 'Mississippi Masala' won rave reviews in Europe and 'Kamasutra - A tale of love' got world wide attention for being provocative.