We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aparna Shewakramani. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aparna below.
Aparna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
As someone who considers herself a “recovering attorney”, I’m overall happier as a creative. I am very transparent that it is a much more uncertain future for me personally since there is no clear pathway to success in this particular industry – it certainly doesn’t come with a guidebook. As a lawyer, I was very used to routine paychecks and goingt o an office five-days a week from 8am-6pm or so. Now, as a creative it often feels like I am always working but also not effectively working on one thing at a time. There is no room for routine or rigidity as a creative and embracing the chaos is my biggest ongoing lesson.
After being edited as the most polarizing character on Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking in July 2020, I left law in October 2020 as a sabbatical for one year and have not returned. I wrote my memoir in 2021 and it came out in March 2022 in USA and April 2022 in India. Season 2 of Indian Matchmaking came out in August 2022. And I just finished writing my first screenplay (a holiday rom movie) in December 2022. With many projects in early to mid-stages of development, I am uncertain if this pathway in entertainment will work out long term but I am committed to giving it my all in 2023. Writing and creating shows feels much more aligned for me than my decade-long career in law, so I’ve chosen to honor that feeling of alignment and pursue this new career path in my mid-30s.
Aparna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As mentioned earlier, I am most well-known for my polarizing portrayal on Netflix’s hit show Indian Matchmaking seasons 1 and 2. From this edit, I became an overnight ambassador for women demanding to be heard—in their love lives, workplaces, and in every space they occupy. Now a “recovering attorney”, I pivoted my JD from Vanderbilt University Law and 10 years of legal practice into a writing career.
I am currently the international bestselling author of She’s Unlikeable: And Other Lies That Bring Women Down. I have appeared on A Little Late with Lilly Singh and Kal Penn Approves This Message, as well as been featured in over 200 media outlets ranging from The Tamron Hall Show to The New Yorker, NYT, Time, Washington Post and O Magazine.
No longer practicing law (2 years and counting), I am most proud of my leap of faith in quitting my legal career and starting on a new career path in my mid-30s. Only at the beginning of learning about the entertainment industry and creating my own projects, I am excited about the future but also transparent that comes with a lot of anxiety, uncertainty and doubt. I wouldn’t have it any other way and tell myself every day, “Keep going. One day soon, you’ll look back and be so relieved you kept going.”
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Storytelling it as the heart of all that I do in my creative journey. I first told my own story in my memoir and then pivoted to telling the story of a strong, South-Asian female lead in a romantic holiday movie. I am also creating my own docu-series that has a travel and wellness bent as it follows my own journey through India. And on the horizon, I am working on development of scripted shows that also involve South Asian women as main characters. I deeply believe in bringing these characters and stories to mainstream entertainment and see myself doing it through a variety of mediums now and throughout my career.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
The importance of social media in today’s world cannot be understated. It’s an arduous undertaking and I say that, because it’s good to realize that it’s not easy for 99 percent of people trying to grow their presence. But start small : pick one platform to begin with – be it Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook or Instagram. Make sure you’re on it for a productive 30 minutes per day. Create content you think your audience or ideal community would engage with and enjoy. And be ready to stay flexible if and when that content has to shift to better benefit the community you actually DO engage. It’s a constant exercise in adapting to ever-changing information being received from your audience.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @aparnashewakramani
- Facebook: Aparna Shewakramani – business page
- Linkedin: https://www.
linkedin.com/in/aparna- shewakramani/ - Twitter: @aparnashewak
- Other: Tik tok: @aparnashewakramani
Image Credits
For every image except window profile shot and image of orange shirt, brown jacket, profile, credit to: Divya Pande