Shahana Goswami was born on May 6, 1986, in New Delhi. She did her schooling at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya in the National Capital and then graduated from Sophia College in Mumbai. (All pictures: Shahana's official Instagram)

Shahana Goswami excelled in sports during her school days, securing the second position at the National Artificial Wall Climbing Competition and has represented her school in athletics, badminton, basketball and volleyball at the zonal level. She was also the house captain and sports champion in her school.

Shahana Goswami trained in Odissi for 10 years under Guru Padmashri Kiran Segal and has travelled and performed extensively with her dance troupe. Harbouring aspirations about becoming an actress since an early age, Shahana Goswami, moved to Mumbai to complete her graduation and to explore the possibility of taking up acting as a career, where her first steps in acting were at Jaimini Pathak's theatre group Working Title. There, she started off as a production assistant and then acted in their productions of Seagull and Arabian Nights.

Shahana began her big-screen career in 2006. Her Bollywood debut in Naseeruddin Shah's first directorial venture Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota, happened when she met casting director Shanoo Sharma who asked her to audition for a role in the film.

Shahana Goswami bagged a small role of Boman Irani's daughter in Reema Kagti's Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd (2007) quite by accident when she visited the production house for some other work.

Shahana Goswami was studying in college, completing her graduation, when she was cast opposite Randeep Hooda in Ru Ba Ru (2008), directed by Arjun Bali. A cinematographer, who noticed her work in Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota, recommended her and she auditioned for the lead role and gave the first shot for the film in Bangkok.

Shahana Goswami got her big break with the 2008 film Rock On!!, which starred Arjun Rampal, Farhan Akhtar (his debut as an actor), Prachi Desai and others. The film, which was directed by Abhishek Kapoor, saw Shahana playing Rampal's on-screen wife Debbie. She was cast after her friends Shanoo Sharma and Simran suggested her name to Kapoor.

Shahana Goswami's performance in Rock On!! not only secured her a prominent spot on the Bollywood map, but also fetched her many awards, the most prestigious of them being the Filmfare Best Actress (Critics) award, which no supporting actress had won until then.

After tasting success with Rock On!!, 2009 and 2010 saw Shahana Goswami work in the films, Firaaq, Jashnn, Mirch, Break Ke Baad and Tera Kya Hoga Johnny.

Shahana Goswami appeared in two films in 2011, namely Game and Ra.One. The former was a stylish action-thriller starring Abhishek Bachchan, Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Sarah-Jane Dias, Boman Irani, Gauahar Khan and Jimmy Shergill and the latter, an ambitious superhero film starring Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Arjun Rampal in lead roles.

Shahana Goswami bagged her first international project in 2012 when she was locked in to be a cast member in Deepa Mehta's Midnight Children, which was an adaptation of author Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name.

Shahana Goswami followed that up by appearing in Madhur Bhandarkar's Heroine, which starred Kareena Kapoor Khan, Shahana's Ru Ba Ru and Rock On!! co-star Randeep Hooda and Arjun Rampal respectively. She played an actress who befriends Kareena, who was essaying a top Bollywood leading lady in the film, which met with mixed reviews.

In 2013, Shahana Goswami was the female lead in Vara: A Blessing directed by Khyentse Norbu, who wielded the megaphone in The Cup and Travellers & Magicians. She won Asian Award for Best Actress for her performance in this film.

Apart from films, Shahana Goswami appeared in the music video for Dido's Let's Do The Things We Normally Do as a taxi driver in Mumbai, which was shot by Siddharth Sikand and also featured in a Fevicol commercial set in a village in Rajasthan. Pictured: Shahana with the Best Actress award she won at the International Film Festival of Cineforum Islantilla. She tweeted, 'Finally in my hand. Best Actress award from the International Film Festival of Cineforum Islantilla in Huelva, Spain. Thank you to the jury and the festival for this honour (sic)'.

Shahana Goswami reprised her role as Debbie Mascarenhas in Rock On II in 2016, which saw Shraddha Kapoor and Purab Kohli join the cast along with the original team. She then made her Bengali film debut the same year with Under Construction, following that up with Tu Hai Mera Sunday, which released in 2017. Her on-screen kiss with co-star Barun Sobti made headlines before the film's release. Shahana stated that she had no problems doing bold scenes on screen. She was last seen in the psychological thriller In The Shadows.

Shahana Goswami may have been away from Hindi cinema but the actor is impressed with the changing landscape and hopes she gets to be a part of movies that matter. Shahana says her absence from Bollywood was not out of choice. "I have not been offered those kinds of roles that I would want to do," she said.

Here's wishing a very happy birthday to Shahana Goswami!