From finance to films: Shruti Tewari’s story

From being a wall street investment banker to a busy theatre and film actor, Shruti Tewari has made an exceptionally unique and interesting career path for herself. It’s not a transition that everyone can manage, but as someone who was determined to have both a fulfilling family life as well as an identity outside of it, Tewari has pulled it off with flair. In other words, she is truly a pin up Indian diaspora story.

Born and brought up in India, she moved to the US to study at the Columbia University in the city of New York, and wound up at a bulge bracket investment bank, JP Morgan. “The excitement of that moment at the age of 22 suppressed all rational thought and I signed up for a job that entailed ninety-hour work weeks and a completely foreign lifestyle.” She says, reminiscing about her initial years at work, which she thoroughly enjoyed. “What I loved about my job was everything – the smart decision-making, the collaborative brainstorming, the quantitative and qualitative analyses, the interactions with top management of Fortune 500 companies and, of course, the paycheck” she says.

However, it was hard to juggle a career in finance with family needs. A she puts it: “It was a humbling experience to realize that I simply could not do it all.” Once she had her baby girl, Tewari found herself torn between the child and work. The fact that she did not have an extended family setup in the US, made it doubly hard. And after one year of her daughter’s birth, she said her good byes to investment banking.

The birth of her son also saw her move geographically from New York to Silicon Valley. On the initial years of bringing up not one, but two children, she says “if taking care of one was demanding, caring for two, was a whole different ordeal. After a few years of sleepless nights and endless chores, I was mentally and physically exhausted, and my challenge-seeking spirit had taken a beating.”

But she was determined to get herself back. “I was expected to be content with all I had, those celebratory milestones of life – marriage and children – but I wasn’t. This was the second role I had etched to appease others, and I was ready to reclaim me, in spirit, form and identity” says Tewari. It helped, that she had been very active in extra-curricular activities in her student years as she began engaging in community events and local theatre. But a big break came with the success of her one-woman show “The Human Voice”, when a casting director got in touch with her for a Bollywood role. The film turned out to be the 2009 hit “Love Aaj Kal”, for which she met Imtiaz Ali, and got a role. “That moment marked the beginning of my decade-long love affair with films that has taken me to film sets around the US, and character portrayals from arou nd the world” says Tewari, who has not looked back since.

In talking about her experience with achieving work life balance, she says “It is a constant struggle for most women and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. It is imperative to evaluate one’s own priorities in the context of one’s own circumstances, and then choose a path that serves one well. My secret was to completely embrace my transition from a corporate busy bee to a freelance artist. I learned to slow down, affording myself the opportunity to explore new avenues with neither the fear of failure nor the pressure to succeed. I simply tried.”

Tewari now wants to continue to be in the performing arts as long as she can. Besides acting, she wants to do more writing and directing, in order to present Indian diaspora in more than just Hollywood stereotypes. “I am completely at peace with my transformed life and do not miss my stint in finance at all. That was an ideal vocation for a different time in my life. Today, the arts are the perfect fit for my given circumstances, and I am grateful for the opportunity to call myself an artist” she says.

Tewari’s is an inspiring story for her determination in re-creating herself successfully when life so demanded. We look forward to seeing more of her future work!