Indian actress Sonali Kulkarni made her screen debut in 1992 with Girish Karnad's Hindi film Cheluvi, and soon entered Marathi cinema with Jabbar Patel's Mukta (1994). Throughout the 1990s, she balanced film and television, delivering notable early performances in the award-winning Doghi (1995), Amol Palekar’s internationally acclaimed Daayraa (1996), and the political drama Gharabaher (1999). Kulkarni gained wider recognition with Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Mission Kashmir (2000), which brought her multiple Best Supporting Actress nominations, followed by successful roles in the romantic thriller Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya and Farhan Akhtar's coming-of-age film Dil Chahta Hai. Though she experienced a few commercial failures thereafter, she continued to receive critical praise for her performances in Marathi cinema, including Chaitra (2002), Devrai (2004), and the 2005 Gujarati hit Love Is Blind, the first of which earned her a National Film Award Special Mention.