Nagma (born Nandita Arvind Morarji on 25 December 1974) is an Indian politician and former actress. She is known for her roles in Telugu and Tamil movies like Gharana Mogudu, Kadhalan, Baashha and many others. She began her acting career in Bollywood and acted in a few of the biggest Bollywood movies and in other languages. Nagma has acted in a broad range of India's languages: Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bhojpuri, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, and Marathi.
Nagma's biological father was Arvind Pratapsinh Morarji whose forefathers hailed from a royal Hindu Rajput background from Jaisalmer, later migrating to Porbandar, Gujarat and finally Mumbai. Her great-grandfather Gokuldas Morarji was a reputed businessman in the shipping, textile, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries. Her mother is a Muslim and hailed from the Konkan region of Maharashtra. She belonged to the Kazi freedom fighter family and her original name was Shama Kazi, but she is now known as Seema. She married Morarji in 1969 at the CCI Club in Mumbai, but separated from him in 1974 According to Nagma's passport, the name given to her at birth was Nandita Arvind Morarji, which has now been updated to Nagma Arvind Morarji. In her father's obituary printed by the family, she is referred to by her original name, Nandita. After divorcing Morarji in August 1974, Nagma's mother married Chander Sadanah, a film producer in March 1975 with whom she had three children: including two daughters, actresses Roshini and Jyothika. Through her biological father, who had remarried earlier, Nagma has two half-brothers, Dhanraj, and Yuvraj.
Nagma remained close to her biological father until his death on 31 December 2005. She explained to a Mumbai reporter that "I am proud of the fact that I belong to a respectable family. My mother was legally married to my father, the late Shri Arvind Morarji, at a public function at the CCI Club, Mumbai." It was Nagma's mother who encouraged her to become an actress and is said to have been her "constant companion on the film sets" for several years.
Inspired by her entrepreneurial background, Nagma forayed into the clothing business by opening a boutique in Mumbai in Bandra West on Hill Road called Nagma's, which was inaugurated in September 2000 by Akshay Kumar. Although the boutique was highly successful and an instant hit, she had to shut it down in 2003 as she had to be by the side of her ailing father while simultaneously honoring her Bhojpuri and other language film commitments apart from her spiritual quest, then teaching Art of Living.
