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Where are the Malhotras and Swaminathans of 2 States REALLY from?
Wonder where the Punjabis and Tamilians in this week's release 2 States are from in real life?
Alia Bhatt and Arjun Kapoor play a young couple from the opposite sides of the Vindhyas.
Based on Chetan Bhagat's bestseller of the same name, the film chronicles the couple's journey to matrimony as they navigate their way through their families' regional prejudices.
Veering clear of casting cliches, director Abhishek Varman has roped in some interesting actors to portray the characters.
Which part of the country do these actors, who play clearly defined North and South Indian characters, come from in real life?
Alia Bhatt
Alia plays a Tamil girl, Ananya Swaminathan.
In real life, she's as far removed from all things south as possible.
Daughter of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and actress Soni Razdan, the 20-year-old leading lady is of Gujarati descent from her dad's side and is part Kashmiri (Soni's dad is a Kashmiri Pandit) and German (Soni's mum Trudy is German) on her mother's side.
Alia's great grandparents lived in Berlin; her great granddad ran an underground newspaper against Adolf Hitler.
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Arjun Kapoor
Arjun Kapoor plays Punjabi munda Krish Malhotra.
In real life, he is the son of producer Boney Kapoor, a Punjabi, and his wife Mona Shourie Kapoor, also a Punjabi.
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Amrita Singh
Amrita Singh makes her acting comeback with 2 States and plays Krish's overbearing mom Kavita Malhotra.
Amrita was born to Sikh and Muslim parents.
Her mother Rukhsana Sultana was one of Delhi's best-known figures in the 1970s, close to Sanjay Gandhi.
Amrita's maternal grandmother Zarina was the daughter of Justice Mian Ehsan-ul Haque, the chief justice of the princely state of Bikaner and whose younger sister was the legendary actress Begum Para, the original Oomph girl of the 1950s, and actor Ayub Khan's mother.
On her father's side, Amrita is Khushwant Singh's grand niece. Her dad Shivinder Singh was the son of Mohinder Kaur, Khushwant Singh's only sister.
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Ronit Roy
Ronit Roy, who won awards and good notices playing the unreasonable dad in Udaan, plays another dad, Vikram Malhotra, in 2 States.
Ronit is a Bengali from Nagpur.
His Punjabi connection is director Subhash Ghai, his dad's old friend at whose home he stayed in when he came to Mumbai to become an actor.
Ghai, Ronit has said, is like a father to him, and someone he would do anything for.
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Revathy
Actress (Ab Tak Chhappan) and filmmaker (Mitr My Friend, Phir Milenge) Revathy plays Ananya Swaminathan's mother Radha.
In real life, Revathy is a Malayali and was born in Kochi to parents Kelunni Nair -- a major in the Indian Army -- and Lalitha Kelunni.
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Shiv Kumar Subramaniam
The only Tamilian in real life, Shiv co-wrote Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Parinda and Sudhir Mishra's Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.
A theatre actor of long standing, Shiv plays Ananya's father Shiv Swaminathan and recently featured in the Anil Kapoor television series 24, Suparn Verma's Aatma, where he played Bipasha Basu's dad, That Girl In Yellow Boots and Kaminey.