Sooni Taraporevala (born 1957) is an Indian screenwriter, photographer and filmmaker who is the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay! (1988), all directed by Mira Nair. She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey (2000) wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar her directorial debut Little Zizou as well as her latest film Yeh Ballet (2020) A Netflix Original that she wrote and directed. She directed her first feature film, based on a screenplay of her own, an ensemble piece set in Mumbai, in Spring, 2007, entitled Little Zizou. This film explores issues facing the Parsi community to which she belongs. In 2010 Little Zizou won a National award for Best Film on Family Values She was awarded the Padma Shri by Government of India in 2014. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Delhi and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Early life and education Taraporevala was born to a Parsi family in Mumbai in 1957. She completed her schooling from Queen Mary School, Mumbai. She received a full scholarship to attend Harvard University as an undergraduate. Though she majored in English and American Literature, she took many film courses including filmmaking taught by Alfred Guzzetti. She met Mira Nair as an undergraduate, leading to their longtime creative collaboration. Next she joined the Cinema Studies Department at New York University, and after receiving her MA in Film Theory and Criticism, in 1981, she returned to India to work as a freelance still photographer. She returned to Los Angeles in 1988 and worked as a screenwriter, writing commissioned screenplays for a wide variety of studios including Universal, HBO and Disney. She moved back to India for good in 1992 . Screenplays Taraporevala wrote the screenplays for Salaam Bombay! and Mississippi Masala, both directed by Mira Nair. Other projects with Nair include the screenplay for My Own Country, based on the book by Abraham Verghese, as well as The Namesake (2006), a cinematic adaptation of Pulitzer–winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri's novel, The Namesake. Her other produced credits include the film Such a Long Journey based on the novel Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry and directed by Sturla Gunnarson, and the screenplay for the film Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, directed by Jabbar Patel