Mumbai: Actor-musician Shruti Haasan has opened up about how her understanding of “home” has transformed over the years, shaped by a life lived across multiple cities, film industries and cultural spaces. For Haasan, belonging is no longer tied to a specific geography but to an internal sense of comfort and identity.
Reflecting on her journey across Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad — cities that have played significant roles in her personal and professional life — the actor said she has gradually realised that home is not a fixed location.
“Home is not geography at all for me, is what I’ve realized,” she shared. “When I go back to Chennai I feel an ease and I feel a love that is so infinite. In Mumbai, I feel a different kind of love. In Hyderabad, because I work in these industries, I feel a different kind of love.”
Life across industries and cities
Shruti Haasan has worked extensively in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi cinema, carving out a career that spans regional and mainstream Bollywood films. Each city, she explained, has offered her a distinct emotional connection shaped by friendships, collaborations and lived experiences.
Chennai, where she grew up, continues to hold a deep emotional resonance. Mumbai represents her journey in Hindi cinema, while Hyderabad is closely associated with her work in Telugu films. However, over time, she began to see these connections as experiences rather than anchors.
“What I’ve realized is you could probably throw me in the middle of anywhere and if I have to find my comfort, I will,” she said. “That’s my joy in life, it’s getting to know people and a place and its culture and finding the thing that I love about it and making it then mine.”
Her remarks underline how a career that involves constant travel, shifting film sets and varied cultural contexts can reshape one’s sense of stability.
‘I am my home’
Haasan emphasised that the idea of home has become deeply personal and internal. “Home is really where I am,” she noted. “It’s something that’s deeply personal and I could be in what is so-called the most comfortable place, including my physical home, and I could be completely discombobulated because I don’t feel at home with myself.”
She added that this realisation has given her a strong sense of security. “So that concept of myself is superior in my brain — that I am my home — and that has given me a great sense of safety and security in navigating anything in life.”
For Haasan, this internal grounding has become a guiding principle in both her personal relationships and professional decisions. In an industry often marked by uncertainty, relocations and public scrutiny, cultivating inner familiarity has helped her maintain balance.
Emotional anchors and family
While she believes home is primarily internal, Haasan acknowledged that there are emotional anchors in her life. She mentioned that apart from herself, her father feels like the “physical embodiment of home”.
Shruti is the daughter of veteran actor and filmmaker Kamal Haasan, and has often spoken about the influence he has had on her artistic sensibilities and worldview.
“To me, home has never been geography. It’s never been a person, maybe apart from my dad, who really feels like the physical embodiment of home to me,” she said. “Nothing’s really been more home than me for myself. That might sound a bit self-centred, but it’s worked out really well for me.”
Her comments offer insight into how individuals who grow up in public life and work across linguistic and cultural landscapes may redefine identity on their own terms.
Redefining belonging
Shruti Haasan’s perspective reflects a broader shift among many modern professionals whose careers span cities and countries. Instead of attaching comfort to a single location, she suggests that belonging can be cultivated internally, through adaptability and self-awareness.
In an industry where actors frequently relocate for projects that may involve budgets running into several crores and teams of hundreds, the idea of rootedness can be fluid. Haasan’s reflections indicate that stability may come less from permanence and more from self-acceptance.
As she continues to balance acting and music across industries, her evolving definition of home appears to offer a framework for navigating change without losing a sense of self.
In the end, her message is simple yet layered: home is not always where you are born or where you live — sometimes, it is who you become.
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