Nanda was born in a Maharashtrian show-business family to Vinayak Damodar Karnataki, a successful Marathi actor-director .Her father died when Nanda was a child. The family faced hard times. She became a child artiste and helped them by working in films like Jaggu in the early 1950s. She was tutored at home by renowned schoolteacher and Bombay Scouts commissioner, Gokuldas V. Makhi. Her brother is Marathi film director Jaiprakash Karnataki and Jayashree Talpade is her sister-in-law
