her career with Marathi stage. Once in Mumbai while still at NSD, Jayadev and Rohini started a Marathi theatre group in Mumbai, called "Awishkar", which went on to produce over 150 plays. In 1975 she won the Best Actress Award at the Maharashtra State Drama Festival, for her performance in Changuna, a Marathi adaptation of Federico García Lorca's Spanish classic Yerma. The play was produced by "Awishkar" in Mumbai. Hattangadi is the first woman to act in Kannada play Yakshagana, a folk play directed by K. Shivaram Karanth, and is the first woman in Asia to act in a Japanese Kabuki play, Ibaragi, directed by Shozo Sato, a Japanese director. One play that Hattangadi was particularly appreciated for is Aparajita, based on a Bengali story by Nitin Sen. First staged in 1999, this 120-minute long solo-act play has over the years been performed in both Hindi and Marathi. Incidentally, it was her first performance in a long time to be directed by her husband, Jayadev Hattangadi. In all she has performed in five plays directed by him, including Medea, a Greek tragedy written by Euripides. Her other theatre credits include Vijay Tendulkar's Mitra Chi Gosht, directed by Vinay Apte, Hori based on Premchand's Godaan, produced by IPTA, and most recently in the Hindi play Kohra with Sudha Chandran and Babul Bhavsar. Hattangadi, along with husband Jayadev, ran "Kalashray", a centre for research, education in arts and talent encouragement in Mumbai, working with the underprivileged and developing tools for powerful communication. She won the 2004 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to Indian theatre. Film Hattangadi made her film debut with Saeed Akhtar Mirza's Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan in 1978. The film won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie. This was followed by her appearance in Mirza's next picture, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Ata Hai (1980), which won the same award, and Rabindra Dharmaraj's drama Chakra (1981). Her characters in these films were minor. Her next film was Richard Attenborough's biographical film Gandhi (1982), based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi. She played Kasturba Gandhi, the wife of Mahatma, played by Ben Kingsley. The film was a major critical success, and among other awards won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Hattangadi's performance garnered her international recognition and she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1983, the only Asian to do