Kausalya (born Kavitha Shivashankar on 30 December 1979), also known as Nandini, is an Indian film actress and model, who has starred mainly in Tamil and Malayalam films. She had starred in over 30 films in Tamil and Malayalam in lead roles, while securing a Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Tamil for her performance in Pooveli. By the mid-2000s, she turned character artiste and went on to portray supporting roles in films such as Thirumalai and Santosh Subramaniam and ventured into television with the series Manaivi which aired 436 episodes on Sun TV.Kausalaya is born to Shivasankaran, an officer at Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation and a Tamil mother Poornima, a house wife, on 30 December 1979. She has a brother Shanmugha who is a business man. She remains unmarried.Her famous movies are april 19,lelam,jolly,pooeli and unnudan etc.