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50 free Indian Celebrities trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
India's celebrities are famous on a scale few countries match: a film star's birthday draws crowds outside his house, a cricketer's debut is remembered to the day, and a playback singer can stay in demand for half a century. Behind the fame sit the details fans trade like currency: the birth name on the school register, the first job before stardom, the television serial nobody expected to matter. These 50 questions cover the whole celebrity map: Hindi and southern cinema, the cricket team, classical and film music, technology and industry, Olympic sport and the pageant winners who turned a crown into a screen career. Each asks for a person and hands you a second clue to reason from, and every answer comes with a one-line explanation that adds something new. Play it on your phone, or print it for a family quiz night, a classroom round or a Diwali party.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor's parents first planned to name him Inquilaab, after the slogan 'Inquilab Zindabad'?
Amitabh Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan owes his name to the poet Sumitranandan Pant, who suggested it to his father, the poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan.
Q 02Which Tamil superstar, born Shivaji Rao Gaikwad, was a Bangalore bus conductor before acting?
Rajinikanth
Rajinikanth worked as a conductor for the Bangalore Transport Service, and Forbes India later named him the most influential Indian of 2010.
Q 03Which future India captain worked as a travelling ticket examiner at Kharagpur from 2001 to 2003?
MS Dhoni
MS Dhoni was a Travelling Ticket Examiner with South Eastern Railway, having kept wicket for Commando cricket club and Central Coal Fields in the 1990s.
Q 04Which actress, later the star of Main Hoon Na, was the first Indian crowned Miss Universe, in 1994?
Sushmita Sen
Sushmita Sen won the crown at 18, having just taken the Femina Miss India title, and was also the first Bengali woman to become Miss Universe.
Q 05Which batter made his Test debut against Pakistan in Karachi in November 1989, aged just 16?
Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar was 16 years and 205 days old on debut, and went on to represent India for over 24 years.
Q 06Which Jamshedpur-born actress was the first South Asian to headline a US network drama, in Quantico?
Priyanka Chopra
Priyanka Chopra played FBI recruit Alex Parrish in Quantico from 2015 to 2018, winning a People's Choice Award for Favourite Actress in a New TV Series.
Q 07Which action star, born Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia, worked as a chef and waiter in Bangkok before acting?
Akshay Kumar
Akshay Kumar studied Muay Thai in Bangkok, and in 2010 hosted India's first MasterChef series on Star Plus.
Q 08Which actress made her Hollywood debut opposite Vin Diesel in xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)?
Deepika Padukone
Deepika Padukone took the role straight after Bajirao Mastani, the Bhansali epic named Best Film at the 61st Filmfare Awards.
Q 09Which Madurai-born engineer became chief executive of Google in 2015 and of its parent Alphabet in 2019?
Sundar Pichai
Sundar Pichai, born Pichai Sundararajan, was Google's product chief under Larry Page before being named CEO in August 2015.
Q 10Which British actress, born in Hong Kong, married Vicky Kaushal at a fort in Rajasthan in December 2021?
Katrina Kaif
Katrina Kaif was born with her mother's surname Turcotte, and lived in China, Japan and France before settling in London.
Q 11Which singer, named Hema at birth, was renamed after Latika, a character in one of her father's plays?
Lata Mangeshkar
Lata Mangeshkar sang the patriotic 'Aye Mere Watan Ke Logo' in the presence of Jawaharlal Nehru in January 1963, in the shadow of the Sino-Indian War.
Q 12Which actress, born Bhanurekha Ganesan to star Gemini Ganesan, won a National Award for Umrao Jaan?
Rekha
Rekha started as a child actress in Inti Guttu (1958) and Rangula Ratnam (1966) before moving to Hindi films, where she is famously reluctant to give interviews.
Q 13Which Hindi film legend was born Muhammad Yusuf Khan in Peshawar's Qissa Khawani Bazaar?
Dilip Kumar
Q 21Which tennis player's bronze at Atlanta 1996 was India's first individual Olympic medal in 44 years?
Leander Paes
Leander Paes beat Fernando Meligeni for the medal and, through Paris 2024, remained the only Indian to win an Olympic tennis medal.
Q 22Which Ahmedabad-born tycoon dropped out of school at 16 and began as a diamond sorter in Mumbai in 1978?
Gautam Adani
Gautam Adani ran his elder brother's plastics unit in Ahmedabad from 1981, importing PVC before founding his own group in 1988.
Q 23Which Infosys co-founder, who began with ₹10,000 lent by his wife in 1981, is Rishi Sunak's father-in-law?
Narayana Murthy
Dilip Kumar's childhood house in Peshawar was declared a national heritage monument by Pakistan's government in 2014.
Q 14Which industrialist led his family group from 1991 to 2012, buying Tetley, Corus and Jaguar Land Rover?
Ratan Tata
Ratan Tata succeeded JRD Tata as chairman of Tata Sons in 1991 and came back as interim chairman from October 2016 to February 2017.
Q 15Which Reliance Industries chairman lives in Antilia, a 27-storey private tower in Mumbai?
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani's Antilia was valued at US$1 billion, the world's most expensive private residence when built, and needs a staff of about 600 to run.
Q 16Which composer was born Dileep Kumar Rajagopala in Madras in 1967?
A. R. Rahman
A. R. Rahman is nicknamed the 'Mozart of Madras' and 'Isai Puyal', or Musical Storm, and in December 2024 became Honorary President of the Trinity Laban conservatoire.
Q 17Which singer was unofficially banned by All India Radio and Doordarshan from May 1976 during the Emergency?
Kishore Kumar
Kishore Kumar was blacklisted by broadcasting minister Vidya Charan Shukla after Sanjay Gandhi asked him to sing at a Congress rally and he refused.
Q 18Which actress debuted aged four in the 1967 Tamil film Kandhan Karunai?
Sridevi
Sridevi, cited as Indian cinema's first female superstar, went straight from child roles to heroine without, by her own account, ever experiencing school or college life.
Q 19Which actor's charity Being Human sells T-shirts and other products to help the underprivileged?
Salman Khan
Salman Khan also launched SKBH Productions in 2011, with profits from its films donated to the Being Human organisation.
Q 20Which shooter's two Paris 2024 bronzes made her the first Indian since independence to win two medals at one Olympics?
Manu Bhaker
Manu Bhaker took 10 m air pistol bronze, the first Olympic medal by an Indian woman shooter, then another in the mixed team event with Sarabjot Singh.
Narayana Murthy's daughter Akshata married Rishi Sunak in 2009, thirteen years before Sunak became British prime minister.
Q 24Which Wipro founder-chairman left Stanford at 21 to run his late father's vegetable-oil company?
Azim Premji
Azim Premji turned Western Indian Vegetable Products into an IT giant, and in 2013 signed the Giving Pledge with a $2.2 billion gift to his education foundation.
Q 25Which actor won both Filmfare Best Debut and Best Actor for Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai (2000), directed by his father?
Hrithik Roshan
Hrithik Roshan is the only actor to take Best Debut and Best Actor at both Filmfare and IIFA for a single film.
Q 26Which actor's television debut was hosting Satyamev Jayate, a talk show on social issues, in May 2012?
Aamir Khan
Aamir Khan's Satyamev Jayate ran until 2014 and ranks among the highest-rated Indian productions on the Chinese review site Douban.
Q 27Which superstar made his television debut as cadet Abhimanyu Rai in the 1989 army serial Fauji?
Shah Rukh Khan
Shah Rukh Khan had first been cast in Lekh Tandon's serial Dil Dariya, but production delays let Fauji reach screens first.
Q 28Which Student of the Year (2012) debutante starred opposite Gal Gadot in Netflix's Heart of Stone?
Alia Bhatt
Alia Bhatt had first appeared on screen as a child in the 1999 thriller Sangharsh, thirteen years before her first leading role.
Q 29Which actress, daughter of Randhir and Babita, won Filmfare Best Actress as Geet in Jab We Met (2007)?
Kareena Kapoor
Kareena Kapoor debuted in Refugee in 2000 and established herself a year later in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, the top-grossing drama of 2001.
Q 30Which actor, raised in Tonk and Jaipur, played the adult Pi Patel in Ang Lee's Life of Pi?
Irrfan Khan
Irrfan Khan also appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man, Jurassic World and Inferno, after training at Delhi's National School of Drama from 1984.