Shobna Gulati obtained a degree at Manchester University and trained as a postgrad in dance at the Laban Centre, London. She is best known for her television work, playing Anita in Victoria Wood's Dinner Ladies and Sunita Alahan in the long-running TV series Coronoation Street from 2001 to 2006, a role to which she returned at the end of 2009 and departed again in 2013.