KAVYA - The Method to Her Madness

From cinema and storytelling to music and performance, Kavya lives many lives, and none fits a formula.

- Ananya Rai

Days before Mumbai-based multidisciplinary artist Kavya Trehan—who goes by the mononym Kavya— turned 32, I jumped on a Zoom call to ask her what's the most Gemini thing about her.

A selective astrology believer, she relates to a few traits. “As a true blood Gemini, I don't know if I'm two-faced,” she laughs, “but I do feel I'm a different version of myself every single day.”

Maybe it's astrology, or maybe it's just Kavya, but if you know her, you would know that she doesn't want to—or rather, can't be—boxed in. 'Multi-hyphenate' isn't enough of a word—she's an actor, singer, model, and painter, among other things. When I ask her if there's one hat she would choose to wear forever, a question I preface by saying, “This is going to be an annoying one,” she says, “None; I'd die. It's like asking a colour-blind person to choose between blue and red. They're genuinely the same for me. It's my modus operandi.”

Kavya is no stranger to the stage. Though she goes around telling everyone (in jest) that she made her debut with Netflix series The Royals (2025), she's been an actor since she was eight. For her, all of it is symbiotic. “I often say that I'm in a polyamorous relationship with the industries that I work in, because they really do cross-pollinate,” she shares. “I've learnt how cinema has a graph of conflicts and then there's resolution, and I utilise that in my instrumental work.”

Much like her debut EP Know Me Better (2021), her latest EP