Life & Work with Himangini Puri of DTLA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Himangini Puri.

Hi Himangini, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I am a screenwriter, author, poet, and choreographer. My artist alias is Himi. Born and raised in New Delhi, I have been engaged in several Indian and Western classical forms of performing arts. I pursued my higher education in dance globally, studying in Singapore, England, Malta, and Spain. During the pandemic, it became increasingly hard to dance given the strict lockdowns in India, and so I reconnected with my other love, writing. My debut collection of poetry, Unrooting: Musings of an Unsettled Psyche (2023), is about leaving — places, people, and inherited selves — and the uneasy tenderness of discovering who you are. Blending the Indian and Western worlds with vivid imagination, my writings span diverse topics, from love, sex, intimacy, and life to the more abstruse, such as outer space and horror. In 2024, in Mumbai, I took a chance and wrote a dark comedy pilot titled Heer, which got optioned and I eventually sold the whole season to Junun Motion Pictures. I have performed my literary work on stages across the world, including at the Festival of Libraries 2023, organised by the Indian Ministry of Culture, and TEDxEMWS 2024 in Mumbai. I also won the IFP’14 Silver Award for Poetry in 2024.
As a performing artist and writer, I find the stage an incredibly obvious home for my creative spirit. I create productions and films that intertwine my words with multidisciplinary art forms, such as photography, dance, film and music. My productions have been showcased at various venues across India, including the prestigious Tao Art Gallery in Mumbai. Currently, I am pursuing a professional program in Screenwriting at UCLA and have just finished writing my first feature about the unrealistic friendship between two exes.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not. Imagine dancing for nearly 20 years and having that taken away through a world crisis. I’m truly grateful for how I have ended up becoming a writer but it was a difficult step accepting that art can be boundless, beyond medium. Once I accepted it, many doors opened up. One of the most challenging aspects for me was that I write primarily in English and my work was often seen as complicated or not aligning with general Indian experiences. When I write, I try to capture a universal emotion and given that the world is shifting towards a visual medium of content consumption, the experiences I wrote about would sometimes go amiss. I suppose it is through constant rejection and refusing to give up that I have now managed to find my groove. It took some time, but I’m getting somewhere.

Another difficult moment for me was navigating an industry I never intended to be a part of. When I wrote my pilot, I had no experience as a screenwriter and was thrown into the deep end quite quickly. That’s the thing with the film industry though, some things happen in the blink of an eye and the others can take years to bring to fruition. Back then, I didn’t even know if I wanted to write screenplays or make films. Now, I don’t think I can complain. Through the multiple mediums I have swum in, I have realized that I’m first a storyteller, then a dancer, writer, and filmmaker.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Briefly put – I dance about the things I can’t write and write about things I can’t dance.

I have choreographed multidisciplinary performances that have been performed throughout India at various stages such as for the Tao Art Gallery. I have written, directed and produced music videos for the Indian rapper TWINQ. I specialize in writing poetry and screenplays, especially in the genre of dark comedy.

I think I’m known for making people feel seen in ways they didn’t expect, especially through work that sits in emotional grey areas rather than easy answers. Whether it’s through my screenplays, poetry or performances, I try to leave people with questions rather than answers. My poetry book was well received and was an Amazon #1 bestseller for a month.

I’m most proud of two things – my novel that is underway and the academic course I built for dance. It’s an online course on the Principles of Choreography, available on Udemy. I created it with my professors at Middlesex University in London.

What sets me apart is that I’ve consistently worked at the intersection of art and impact. I write, perform, and teach, but across all of it, my focus is the same- making complex emotional and human experiences accessible and meaningful. That’s led me to build work that resonates across different spaces, from stage to screen to education.

What’s next?
I have just finished writing my first feature, ‘Nevermind’, a drama-comedy and am very thrilled to bring it to life. The project excites me because it explores the relationship between two exes who remain in each other’s lives in unexpected ways. The story follows Indian characters, some from India, some born in the US, and looks at love, identity, and the ties that continue even after relationships end. It’s a film that asks viewers to sit with uncomfortable, real situations and hopefully find empathy through that.

I also have another feature, a family drama, and a coming-of-age novel underway.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imaginewithhimi/
• Other: https://himanginipuri.wordpress.com/

Image Credits
Palak Rangta
Kush Bhimani
Akshay Chauhan