While living in
Bedford after moving to the United Kingdom in 1974, Gupta initially studied to become a nurse. Saying that she did so "for a laugh", she decided to audition for Miss Anglia TV, which she won, gaining public notice in 1977. This in turn led to her becoming a hostess on the
ITV gameshow
Sale of the Century alongside
Nicholas Parsons for a year until 1978, after which she opened a fashion
boutique called Plumage in Bedford. Gupta proceeded to make appearances in ''
Turtle's Progress, Lingalongamax
, Doctor Who'' (1984's
Resurrection of the Daleks),
Kim, and
Octopussy. In 1981, she starred in
An Arranged Marriage, an ITV drama about a Sikh who moved to the
Midlands in the 1950s, and the arranged marriages for himself and for his daughter. The storyline was based on information from interviews with more than 250 Sikhs. Her character in
The Far Pavilions engages in
suttee, a scene described by Roy West in the
Liverpool Echo as "one of the dramatic highlights of this spectacular series". She was a guest on
Blankety Blank in 1987. Gupta presented the series
Switch On To English, a quiz show for people who spoke English as a second language, in 1986, and Bol Chaal, a Hindi and Urdu language-learning programme, in 1989. She also formed her own production company. ==Production work==