She was born as Divya Gopikumar[1] in July 1983, to Gopikumar and Pushpa[1][4] in Kerala.

She attended Christ Nagar English High School and Bharatiya

Vidya Bhavan, in Trivandrum and did predegree training from Mar Ivanios College, before graduating in programs for psychology and communications
from the College of Wooster in Ohio.[5]

Her family migrated to the United States in 2004 when she got a job there. Her parents are yoga instructors in Ohio.[6]

Career[edit]
Abhirami made her debut in director Adoor Gopalakrishnan's film Kathapurushan.[7] While in college, Abhirami worked as a TV anchor for the
program Top Ten which aired on the Asianet channel,[4] which according to Abhirami was "quite popular" and got her a film offer.[7] She also appeared in
the 100-episode Malayalam serial Akshaya Pathram, directed by Sreekumaran Thampi.[7] She changed her screen name to Abhirami, the character
name of the heroine of the film Gunaa, being "obsessed with the role and the name".[8]

She had a small role in the Malayalam film Pathram in 1999 and in the series Mercara directed by Jude Attipetty. Later she acted in the
films Millennium Stars, Njangal Santhushtaranu, and Sradha before shifting to Tamil cinema. Her first Tamil film was Vaanavil (2001) opposite Arjun,
which was a "big hit"[4] and was followed by Middle Class Madhavan and Samudhiram. A notable film in her career was Virumaandi, in which she
appeared as a Tamil village girl from Madurai opposite Kamal Haasan.[1] Besides Tamil and Malayalam, she has appeared in Telugu and Kannada films
and was a notable Tollywood actress.[9] In 2003, she appeared opposite Upendra in the film Raktha Kanneeru[10] and opposite Shiva Rajkumar in Sri
Ram. In 2004, she retired from the film industry and settled in the United States for her studies. She went on to work as the marketing director of
an MNC there.[11]

In 2013, Abhirami was the voice of Pooja Kumar in both parts of Kamal Haasan's Vishwaroopam[12] and she went on to host Rishimoolam, a talk show
on the Tamil television channel Puthuyugam.[5][13] The following year, she returned to Malayalam films with Apothecary,[citation needed] in which she played the
role of a gynaecologist.[14] She also appeared in Ithu Thaanda Police playing the role of Sub-Inspector Arundhati Varma.

She has also anchored the reality show Made For Each Other on Mazhavil Manorama.

Personal life[edit]
Abhirami is married to Rahul Pavanan, grandson of writer Pavanan.[5][11][15] They adopted a child.[16]

Filmography[edit]
As actress[edit]
Key

† Denotes films that have not yet been released

List of films and roles

Year Title Role Language Notes Ref.

Child
1995 Kathapurushan
Arti