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Shakti was born Lalitha Gowarikar on 17th October 1967 in Bombay. Her father, Sekhar Gowarikar was an engineer at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Bombay, which may explain the origin of her powers. She has three brothers, Ranjit, Mahadev and Behramji, one older and two younger and one older sister, Manasa. The family lived a fairly prosperous life as her father was a fairly senior figure at the Research Centre.
As she grew up Lalitha noticed that she seemed to be somewhat faster and tougher than other people with an uncontrolled ability to sometimes be able to read peoples minds on touch. She told her parents about this and they made sure she kept it very secret for fear of having her labelled a freak and ruining her marriage prospects. Several of her siblings also developed minor superhuman powers as they grew older.
When she was 19 Lalitha was visiting her father at the Research Centre when the supervillain Agni attacked. He had radioactive powers and wanted to steal radioactive materials from the Research Centre for his own purposes. His initial attack caused an explosion as cooling pipes ruptured and Lalitha was blown into the cooling pond of one of the Centres' nuclear reactors. As she struggled to swim out of the cooling pond she felt herself change and become suffused with power. She flew up out of the cooling pond and attacking by surprise managed to drive Agni away, at the cost of revealing her powers to everyone there. Medical examination revealed that instead of being fatally poisoned by the radiation her body had somehow absorbed it and used it to energise her new powers.
The Indian government hushed up the incident, but after a few weeks the Indian Secret Service called at the family home with recruiting in mind. When her father, who is something of an idealist, refused let her have anything to do with this he was given a few weeks to reconsider or certain unspecified threats would be carried out. The whole family were very worried by this, and even more so when a few days later a group of people from a Thugee cult tried to kidnap Lalitha after hearing about what had happened at the Research Centre. As pressure from the Indian government grew stronger her father secretly arranged for the whole family to leave the country and seek political asylum in America, where some members of their and other families, including Lalithas' childhood betrothed, now lived.
After a fairly hectic time at the airport the family finally made it to America, where after a few weeks her father gained a job at the local university and they moved into a new house near to other family members. Not all of her siblings came to America with them - two of her brothers had careers and families they were unwilling to leave in India. Those of her siblings who did come to America have married and moved out of her parents house since their arrival.
Free from the pressure of being watched by the Indian government Lalitha experimented with her powers, learning their limits and using them to help some of the other Indian families living in the area. When she did this she encountered racism for the first time and after some bad experiences with it both in and out of costume she now hates all racists and racism in general.
Shortly after arriving in the USA Lalitha was married to her arranged childhood betrothed Govind Shrivastava. Unfortunately over the years he has become a short, not too handsome and generally boring businessman, who disapproved of her self-appointed role as protector of the Indian community. However this does not stop her continuing in that role whenever she feels it necessary.
Because of her husbands attitude to her and their generally loveless marriage Lalitha has found comfort in the arms of another - her husbands far more handsome and dynamic business partner Ardhendu Ravikumar. Neither he or she actively sought what has grown up between them - it just seemed to happen naturally. Both she and he are very careful to conceal their affair from the outside world for fear of the consequences.
She is 5'0" tall with long black hair and very dark brown, almost black, eyes. Her costume and mask are maroon with black gloves, boots and insert. She has red scarves around her calves and forearms, a red sash around her waist and a red dot in the centre of her forehead. Out of costume Lalitha wears conventional Indian female dress such as a sari.
Shaktis' powers are all somewhat psionic in nature (although she herself doesn't know this) - her flight is a specialised form of telekinesis and her RKA, Drain and telepathy are all based on manipulation of the targets nervous system. The RKA and Drain are different types of neural disruption, guided by a subconscious instinctive mind scan so they take no penalties for range. Her Telepathy is direct reading or manipulation of a targets brain which due to its complexity she cannot perform at range. Because of her powers she is somewhat vulnerable to Drains and Transfers which cause a damaging power feedback into herself.
The Original Shakti (as played in a convention game) and Shakti with Experience in Champions terms.