No longer just “Kamal Haasan’s daughter”,  Shruti Haasan is quickly establishing a name for herself. A promising  actress, singer, and music composer, working in many different languages, Shruti is making her mark on Indian cinema.

At just the age of six, Shruti made her musical debut in Sivaji Ganesan and Kamal Haasan’s “Thevar Magan”. As a child she sang in a few films, including: “Hey Ram”, “En Mana Vaanil”, and “Chachi 420” which is the Hindi remake of “Avvai Shanmugi”. After returning from the United States, where she further studied music, she re-entered Tamil Cinema through Gautham Menon’s “Vaaranam Aayiram”, in which she sang the song “Adiye Kolluthey”.

She went on to sing even more songs in Tamil, English, Hindi, Kannada, and Telugu. For the “Hisss” soundtrack, Shruti collaborated with American musician Dave Kushner and released an English song called “Beyond the Snake”. She starred in the promotional music video for the song and looked, and sounded, beautiful and powerful.

Shruti debuted as a music composer in Chakri Toleti’s “Unnaipol Oruvan” (2009). She also appeared in the music video for “Vaanam Ellai” with rapper Blaaze.

As a child artiste, Shruti appeared in a cameo for “Hey Ram”. As an actress, she debuted in the Bollywood film “Luck” (2009). She later had a leading role, opposite Siddharth, in Prakash Kovelamudi’s “Anaganaga O Dheerudu” (2011), a Telugu fantasy film co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures. Although her role as Priya, a gypsy, wasn’t as meaty as it could have been, her performance was commendable and natural; her on-screen chemistry with Siddharth was excellent.

Shruti recently debuted as a female lead in Kollywood in A.R. Murugadoss’ “Ezham Arivu” (2011) alongside Surya. She dubbed for herself, her performance was quite convincing, and her emotions were expressed well through her voice and her acting. She was also featured on the soundtrack, singing “Yellae Lama”.

A couple of other films she has recently starred in are “Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji” (Hindi) and “Oh My Friend” (Telugu). “Oh My Friend” stars Siddharth, Shruti Haasan, Hansika Motwani, and Navdeep. Although the film received mixed reviews, critics say that Shruti Haasan gave the best performance. She also sang the song ‘Sri Chaitanya’, a duet with co-star Siddharth.

Some of her upcoming music projects include a song in the “Muppozhudhum Un Karpanaigal” soundtrack. In terms of acting, we can expect to see Shruti in Aishwarya Dhanush’s “3” and Harish Shankar’s “Gabbar Singh”, which is a remake of Dabangg/Osthe.

Watch out for this star-in-the-making. She’s just getting started!

—Shiromi Raveend
—Picture courtesy of IndyaSky.com