It’s just past three at Trincas, Park Street, and the air inside is hushed with the kind of theatrical calm that feels suspended in time — golden-lit lamps, soft rock music wafting across the room, and the occasional clink of cutlery keeping rhythm. Through the deep crimson velvet drapes that still recall the glamour of old Calcutta’s cabaret era, Shruti Das poses exclusively for t2, a while before the trailer launch of Julie at Corridoor Bar & Kitchen across the street.
She’s dressed in a floor-length backless gown in a rich chocolate brown —elegant, minimal, and entirely her. Her hair is slicked back in a neat, low knot. A chunky metallic choker circles her neck like armour, contrasting the softness of the look, and she finishes it all off with pointed black stilettos and a sculptural ring that catches the low light just so.
It’s a look that speaks without trying to, and in that moment, Shruti too seems to embody a kind of duality — cinematic yet grounded, a little elusive, a little familiar. The perfect lead-in, perhaps, to her new series Julie, a psychological drama that flirts with betrayal, grief and rage, all wrapped in a deceptively soft package.
Over slow sips of black coffee, she tells us about Reshmi — the character she plays in Julie. “She comes from a place of neglect. Not just circumstantial, but emotional. There’s abandonment. Hurt. She’s been overlooked for so long. She’s full of this young, raw kind of fire. There’s passion, there’s hurt — and everything she does comes from not being seen or heard in the way she needed to be.”
It’s hard not to ask whether she found herself in Reshmi. Shruti pauses. “Personally, no. Fortunately. My father and I have a healthy relationship,” she laughs, half-wry. “I had a decent childhood. Very middle-class, very ordinary. Robust Indian parenting, you know? I was very naughty, but nothing traumatic.” She leans in, more serious now. “But what I did connect with was the betrayal. The idea that someone you’ve put on a pedestal, someone you’ve loved like no one else, could take something from you. That’s where I could draw from. What would I do if my Baba ever did something like that? That was my entry point.”
To simply call Reshmi the film’s antagonist would be too easy, she argues. “That’s not how I played her. Anger is a mask for hurt. She’s not evil. She’s just... deeply betrayed. She’s just a hurt daughter. That’s what I wanted to bring to the screen.” Shruti has been navigating the shifting tides of the industry with deliberate quietness. Since her official debut in Srijit Mukherji’s X = Prem in 2022, she’s played everything from brittle to bold, often sitting somewhere in between. “It’s been about three years now and I’ve been lucky. I didn’t come in with big dreams. I studied direction at Rabindra Bharati, which was my mother’s suggestion. I just always knew that I would do something in the performing arts. I loved dancing, but I never thought I’d end up here. When I was doing theatre here in Bengal, a friend of mine pushed me to go for an audition and I just went to shut him up. I ended up getting the role and then I was in Dubai for two and a half years for a Bollywood musical. Post that, I stayed in Mumbai for a bit. Things slowly fell into place.”
She’s currently shuttling between Calcutta and Mumbai, reading scripts, taking her time. “Since Khakee: The Bengal Chapter came out recently, I’ve been getting a lot of roles for similar types — married women, lacking understanding and happiness in a patriarchal world. I’m reading them all with an open mind, but I want to be careful about not repeating myself.”
The Khakee experience, she admits, took her by surprise. “The response has been amazing even though I had a small role! So many people have reached out — calls, texts, DMs. Not just from here, but from other industries too. My parents were overjoyed, especially because it’s Netflix. It’s such an international platform. My mum’s friends called her up and told her they watched me and loved it. She was glowing.”
When she’s not working, Shruti’s life is a far cry from the curated chaos of social media. “I’m terrible at Instagram,” she confesses with mock horror. “I’ve never cracked it. People keep telling me to post dance videos —Kathak, Odissi — I’ve trained since I was four. But it doesn’t come naturally. I love acting. But I don’t want to direct, I don’t want to do lighting or edit reels or filter my breakfast. I just want to act. And live a normal life. I read a lot. I’m reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie right now— Dream Count. I walk. I work out. I spend time with my cat. He’s a ginger boy, the love of my life. My soulmate, honestly. I grew up a dog person, but Miguel kind of adopted me during the pandemic. Back then, I used to feed the stray animals around my block in Mumbai — Miguel was one of them. But he kept getting into fights with other cats, and I was constantly taking him to the vet. Eventually, the vet suggested I get him neutered, and after that, Miguel just decided I was his human. He stayed. Honestly, home is wherever Miguel is.” Talking about what she’s been watching lately, Shruti mentions Sinners by Ryan Coogler and Bhog, directed by Parambrata Chattopadhyay.
This inner stillness — this quiet, unhurried self-curation — seems to bleed into how she approaches her craft too. “If I don’t develop as a person, what will I bring to my next character? What am I offering? It can’t all come from the same emotional well I drew from five years ago. Reshmi isn’t the same girl as Joey from X = Prem. They might both have intensity, sure, but they’re different souls. I have to keep growing if I want to keep acting honestly.”
As she heads out, calm amid the buzz around her, Shruti carries the quiet certainty of someone in no rush to prove anything. “Every role is a new question,” she says. And for now, she’s content letting the answers unfold in their own time.
Sanjali Brahma
Picture: B Halder