Meet Dharmendra’s daughter-in-law Deepti Bhatnagar who left Bollywood to become a travel vlogger

VEteran doer Dharmendra’s wellness and retrieval feature been in the intelligence lately, but as the Deol family gears up to celebrate his 90th birthday, another member of the clan is drawing attention — his daughter-in-law Deepti Bhatnagar, a former actor who later found her calling as a travel vlogger.Dharmendra’s family boasts several well-known names in Indian cinema — his sons Sunny and Bobby Deol, daughter Esha Deol, nephew Abhay Deol, and grandsons Karan and Rajveer Deol have all carried forward the family’s acting legacy. Deepti Bhatnagar became part of this illustrious lineage through her marriage to Randeep Arya, the son of Dharmendra’s cousin Veerendra, a celebrated Punjabi actor of the 1980s. From model to movie starBorn in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, Deepti first moved to Mumbai to start a handicraft business before being discovered as a model. She went on to win the Miss India beauty pageant at the age of 18 and quickly rose to prominence in the advertising world.“When I came first to Mumbai at the age of 22, I opened my first bank account with State Bank of India, Juhu, and vowed that by the end of the month, I’d have a lakh in my account. Modelling was easy money, so I succeeded,” Deepti told Hindustan Times in 2022. “When I came to Mumbai, I wanted to buy my dream house in 11 months. And, I did! In Juhu, and that too, from Madhuri Dixit,” she added.Her journey in filmHer acting debut came in 1995 with Sanjay Gupta’s action film Ram Shashtra, co-starring Jackie Shroff, Manisha Koirala, and Aditya Pancholi. The following year, she appeared in the Telugu musical romance Pelli Sandadi and later in the Tamil action film Dharma Chakkaram. In 1997, she made her Hollywood debut in Fred Olen Ray’s Inferno, which also marked R. Madhavan’s first Hollywood film appearance. She later appeared in several Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu films, including Mann (1999), directed by Indra Kumar and starring Aamir Khan and Manisha Koirala. Deepti also ventured into television, playing a cop in the 1998 series Yeh Hai Raaz.On finding her new passionDespite her onscreen success, Deepti said she was never entirely comfortable as an actor. In the early 1990s, after doing an advertisement with Shah Rukh Khan, she was offered the role of Anna in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, but she “ran away from the screen test.”She recalled, “After doing a commercial with Sunny Deol, I was asked to meet Dharmendra, but I was too scared to do that. Who knew I would end up getting married into that family.”Her relationship with DharmendraDeepti later married Randeep Arya; her father-in-law Veerendra, was a popular Punjabi actor in the 1980s. “Randeep and I did the Fair and Lovely commercial, in which he played my husband. We got engaged the same year. Then, I moved in with him. After eight years, I asked him, ‘Shaadi karoge ab?’ (Will you marry me now?),” she shared. The couple has two sons, Shubh and Shiv, and Deepti is also related to TV actor Arjun Bijlani, who is married to her niece, Neha Swami. Now a YouTuber and travel content creator, Deepti continues to share her journeys with followers worldwide.