Girija Shettar is a former Indian actress, journalist, philosopher, and dancer who came into prominence for her work in South Indian cinema including in the Telugu movie Geethanjali (1989) and the Malayalam film Vandanam (1989), Girija’s outstanding performance in the former having fetched her a nomination for the Filmfare Award for “Best Actress – Telugu”.
Born Name
Girija Shettar
Nick Name
Girija
Girija Shettar as seen in March 2014 (Girija Shettar / Instagram)
Sun Sign
Cancer
Born Place
Orsett, Essex, England, United Kingdom
Nationality
Education
As her family had moved a few times, she went to a number of schools including her first one that was a convent, with her last being a boarding school on top of a hill. After that, she attended Cardiff University, completing a doctoral thesis in Integral Yoga Philosophy and Indian Spiritual Psychology in 2003.
Occupation
Actress, Journalist, Philosopher, Dancer
Family
Father – He was a Kannada doctor.
Mother – She has been a businesswoman.
Siblings – She has an older brother.
Build
Slim
Height
5 ft 6 in or 167.5 cm
Weight
60 kg or 132 lbs
Race / Ethnicity
Multiracial (Asian and White)
She is of Indian descent on her father’s side of the family and of English descent on her mother’s side.
Hair Color
Black
Eye Color
Dark Brown
Distinctive Features
Sharp nose
Mole on her right cheek
Defined jawline
Girija Shettar Favorite Things
Travel Destination – Kerala having holidayed at Kovalam as a child and stayed at a hotel on the beach and recollected the place to have been exceptionally beautiful, idyllic, and heavenly
She has disclosed that her physical interests as a young person had been swimming, walking, being out in nature as well as riding horses. Her cognitive interests had included philosophy, religion, occultism as it focuses on the hidden powers of the human psyche, and anything dealing with mental development.
From the age of 18, she has trained in Bharatanatyam.
When Girija came to India, one of the most exciting things for her was to discover Vedic philosophy and yoga and how the study of consciousness is a fully developed science there.
In 1992, she had signed for the lead female part in the Hindi-language coming-of-age sports movie Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, which she quit mid-way in order to finish a prior commitment. She went on to feature in one of the songs in the film titled Jawa ho yaaron.
Shettar had left films in order to prove her fitness to follow a higher calling that had been related to a choice she had made to take up a devoted path of life that would be in the line of Indian or Vedic spirituality.
Girija has affirmed that spirituality has influenced everything she has thought and done, ever since she was a kid. Her deepest longing has been to be free, more than anything else. Girija had explored consciousness in the hope of finding better feeling places and ways to exist, having realized that surrender and rejection help in expanding consciousness. She had looked at the process as something psychological rather than spiritual. She has added that there were, however, mystical experiences.
Girija has cherished spending time at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry.
Shettar has been a writer based in London having previously worked for a medical technology newsletter.
In 2014, she had bagged “Social Media Journalist of the Year” at Seahorse Journalist Awards, London.
She had been distracted for years by not knowing if she could have combined acting alongside her spiritual studies. She has loved filmmaking and most of all has loved India, having missed its temples and ashrams, after going back to London.
