She comes from a family of renowned musicians. Her grand uncle being the legendary Hindustani vocalist Pandit Jasraj, her aunts, playback singer and actor Sulakshana Pandit and actor Vijeta Pandit, are famous in Bollywood. Her brother Yash Pandit is also a film and TV actor. Now, Shweta Pandit, who has sung several songs in Tamil for Yuvan Shankar Raja, has also made her acting debut with the Jiiva starrer David that hit the screens recently.
Being the grand daughter of Hindustani vocalist Pandit Pratap Narayan and daughter of Tabla maestro Vishwanath Pandit, it’s no wonder that Shweta made her singing debut at four in the Hindi version of Anjali. Later, Yash Chopra gave her another break with Mohabbatein when she was 12. The youngster who has also been part of four world tours of A R Rahman, has a swinging career as a singer in Bollywood and Tollywood.
“But it was Yuvan who got me to sing in Tamil with Billa II. He asked me to fly down to Chennai for a recording. When I heard the lyrics, I realised that it was not Telugu but Tamil. Yuvan’s encouragement helped me get the pronunciation right,” recalls Shweta.
Acting happened by chance for Shweta when Bejoy Nambiar, the director of the trilingual David, was looking for singers. “When he met me, he felt I had the face of an actor and offered me a role as Jiiva’s sister. I was unsure, never having acted before. But that’s what he wanted,” laughs Shweta.
Now that the acting bug has bitten her, she wants to act in more Tamil films. “It was great to learn the nuances of the craft from Nasser, who played my dad. His natural acting and comic timing is terrific. Jiiva too helped me in dialogue delivery. I’m lucky I was in the same film in which Vikram and Tabu were also part of,” she says. So what was the reaction of her family? “Everyone is thrilled that I am both a singer and an actor now, much like my aunt Sulakshana who was the rage in the seventies,” concludes Shweta.