Hitesh Kewalya

Hitesh Kewalya is an Indian film Director/Screenplay Writer, who has worked predominantly in Bollywood.

Life and Career
Hitesh Kewalya is from Delhi. His father worked at the National Thermal Power Corporation.

After completing school (Apeejay School in south Delhi’s Sheikh Sarai) in 1998 At the age of 18, Hitesh started working as a writer for All India Radio in 1999, which made him want to take up writing as a career. He did his Bachelor’s through correspondence, and also dabbled in advertising, animation, theatre, scripting events and fashion shows. After three years, it struck him that cinema was where all this came together. “I packed my bags and arrived in Mumbai in 2001,” says Kewalya, 39.

After he arrived in Mumbai in 2001, Kewalya worked as fifth assistant director (AD) on a daily soap for ETV 24 and wrote scripts on the side. Things began to look up when he cleared the first round of the entrance for a Master’s degree in film and video communication at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (NID).

Suresh Triveni, the director of Tumhari Sulu (2017), gave him my first writing gig for a children’s science show. He had auditioned to be the host of the show, but ended up writing for it instead. Intrigued by promos and marketing, Hitesh started writing promos for television shows soon after which he was roped in to write for the 2008 television show Miley Jab Hum Tum. He also worked on a script with Amit V Masurkar, who directed Newton (2017), but nothing came out of it.

Meanwhile, he went on to work on short films, which helped him get better at writing. Making his debut as a dialogue writer for movies, Hitesh was associated with the 2009 movie Siddharth: The Prisoner, for which he was also credited as the associate director. With his next venture, he debuted as a lyricist, penning down the lyrics of few songs from the movie Aagey Se Right in the same year. Continuing to pursue his television career, Hitesh was associated with the television shows Humse Hai Life and Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon, and was also the show creator for Humse Hai Life, which aired on Channel V.

In 2017, Hitesh was signed to write the screenplay and dialogues of director R.S. Prasanna's romantic comedy Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, which is inspired by the director's debut project Kalyana Samayal Saadham.

In 2020, he wrote and directed Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan. Very iconic of him.