I try to take a peep at the sets located inside a run-down mill, but am firmly steered towards Shruti Haasan’s trailer. Tamil cinema’s blue-blooded newbie actress is at the hush-hush Chennai sets of her Tamil debut film — 7 am Arivu or Ezham Arivu (Seventh Sense) — and the film crew is making sure I don’t stray.

There has been wild media speculation about the film, directed by A.R. Ghajini Murugadoss. Some say it’s a big budget sci-fi film, and others hold that it’s a mind-binder based on Christopher Nolan’s Inception. But the filmmakers are tight lipped.

So is Shruti. Dressed in a slim-fitting, sleeveless brown and beige checked cotton kurta paired with a cream coloured churidar and chunni, superstar Kamal Haasan’s elder daughter is like a sepia-tinted heroine. The 1960s’ outfit doesn’t quite fit into the frame of a sci-fi film frame. But Shruti has been sworn to secrecy.

“I play a strong young woman in a role that young girls can relate to. The context of the film is unique. I cannot tell you more or the director will kill me,” she says.

And that’s not a director you’d want to displease, for Shruti is only too aware how fortunate she is to be making her entry into Tamil cinema with Murugadoss, whom she describes as someone “who has a weird connect and perception about everything.”

She can do with some luck. After her Bollywood launch film Luck sank without a trace, this is one chance the singer-composer has of making it in cinema. And she is trying to do so in her father’s homeground. Has it helped being the daughter of a much revered actor-director?

“People have this preconceived notion that Kamal Haasan is some sort of bank draft or investment policy. It’s just a name. It’s not something I am dependent on and neither am I ashamed of. I am just like any other young actress trying hard to make it,” she says robotically. I get the feeling that she’s answered this a million times. But gamely she soldiers on, “Yes, being Kamal Haasan’s daughter definitely opens doors. After that, how you walk into the room is your problem. Today people are more concerned with what you are bringing to the table and what you can do. I need to invest time and energy just like any other newcomer.”

Some doors, she adds, she had to prise open herself. “It’s not as if my dad picked up the phone and asked Murugadoss to cast me in his film. Murugadoss has to believe I can do the role. I prefer it this way. Then I’m not forced on anyone. They should want me in the film. I am not after fame for I’ve seen how temporary fame can be, coming from a home of actors. I just want to be considered a decent person to employ.”

The actress is not just exceptionally articulate, but extremely self-assured for a 24-year-old. Luck, for one, hasn’t dented her confidence. “No one walked out saying that girl was horrible. As long as that is not happening, I’m okay. I would have been happy if my first film had been a hit because it would have made others happy. But I don’t believe in hits and flops because it is not in your hands,” she stresses.

But Shruti hasn’t bid goodbye to her career in Mumbai. She still has to check out the response to her small but reportedly strong role in Madhur Bhandarkar’s new film Dil To Bachcha Hai Ji. And there’s a world outside Bollywood too, for she also stars in a Telugu fantasy film opposite Rang de Basanti star Siddharth.

Life seems to be going her way for now. She’s just finished juggling shooting schedules among Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai and dancing in precarious places in Turkey and Thailand. Her Tamil film will take a couple of more months to complete while the shooting for the other two are over. She spends time with her friends who are dotted all over the world, including Los Angeles where she studied music. I wonder about Siddharth, with whom sections of the media hold she is romantically linked. But Shruti claims to be single. “It’s difficult to pack in a boyfriend in my schedule unless he fits into a travel pack,” she says jocularly.

Not a great believer in finding Mr Right, Shruti claims she’s not romantic, though she loves reading Candace Sex and the City Bushnell. She just wants someone she can connect with. “You want a friend after the candle burns out,” she says. Though her parents were not married when she was born, Shruti believes in marriage as an institution since, she argues, it’s been around for so long.

One has heard so much and so little about her separation from her mother, the actress Sarika. Is it hard not being in touch with one’s mother? She slams a door on my face. “I never talk about it much so it’s not so hard. No, I don’t meet her though I live in Mumbai as well. She’s my mother and I’m thankful to her for the exposure she gave me to the creative arts, for the kind of person I am today, the way I look, for listening to my first Bob Dylan song and the things I like. It is so evident what she has done for me,” she says. She is smiling but her light eyes are cautious. Suddenly, she looks more like her mother than ever before.

I plunge on awkwardly about Gauthami, her father’s live-in girlfriend with whom she reportedly shares a good rapport with and which reportedly led to the split with her mother. Not batting an eyelid, Shruti says with practised ease, “Gauthami is a friend. She cannot be my mother; I already have a mother. You cannot replace relationships in your life. You cannot glue two different things even if you tried; it’s not going to happen.”

Has she been saddled with a situation not of her making? “Parents are what destiny chooses for a child,” she replies. “It’s okay,” she says with a shrug.

Nothing is all black and white, she believes. “I’ve lived with the philosophy that a thief has his reasons for stealing and a saint has his reasons for healing — and you cannot question either. I try to live my life without judging,” she says.

Music is a veritable part of the life she seeks to live. Her singing career runs parallel to acting. She has sung for Sameera Reddy in the popular Tamil film Vaarinam Aayiram, composed music for her father and collaborated with the American guru of music, David Kushner, for a track in the Mallika Sherawat thriller Hisss. “I’m a huge fan of Kushner’s and I was thrilled when he approached me after a friend in LA told him about me. Fortunately he liked my work and we recorded the song.”

As an independent musician, Shruti has straddled heavy metal and Hindustani classical (in which she’s been trained) and plays alternative music with her band Extramentals. “Music till this date is my escape, a land where everything is in sync. I sing not to be a rock star but it’s one thing that really makes me happy,” says Shruti, who loves her Parveen Sultanas as much as her Madonnas.

We sip diet coke and have ready-made soups in her air-conditioned trailer as I badger her with questions. We talk about graphic novels which she loves, about Mumbai, how cute her mother looked in Geet Gaata Chaal and about kissing in films. Somewhere in the midst of this conversation, she also comes across as a vulnerable, papa’s little girl emerging out of a sheltered cocoon. She dismisses the expectations circling around her as unrealistic, and claims she makes her own decisions on roles and films. But she knows her lineage hangs over her celluloid career like a curtain poised to rise or fall.

Having run in and out of film sets sometimes filled with dancing Pomeranians, circus clowns and monkeys with juggling balls, fed on a diet of Kurosawa and Marlon Brando films and having met people like Queen Elizabeth of England with her parents, she clearly has an edge over her contemporaries. Having lived her life through the movies, it is but natural that she feels at home amid the greasepaint, the smell of packed food and the sound of the generator. But how she fares in her films will be another story.

As I leave, I notice Shruti has etched on her heel a single word — “rise”. I am curious, but she won’t talk about it. But rise she will, if Shruti Haasan can help it.