Pepita Seth began her career in the cutting rooms of British and American feature films. However, the chance discovery in 1968 of her soldier great-grandfather’s 1857 diary of her soldier great-grandfather’s 1857 diary inspired her to make her way to India and retrace his route from Kolkata to Lucknow. After several years of increasingly longer visits to India, and by then drawn to Kerala, she finally based herself in Thrissur, where she now lives. From then onwards, driven by her increasing passion and respect for the region’s culture and traditions, she began photographing and writing about the rituals of Kerala’s Hindus. In 1981 she received official permission to enter Kerala’s temples, including Guruvayur Temple.

She has written and lectured extensively on Kerala’s traditions and had exhibitions of her photographs in India, Britain and the United States. In the early 1980’s she spent time in northern Kerala’s Malabar region where she began photographing Theyyam. In 2023 her book, In God’s Mirror: The Theyyams of Malabar —20 years in the making—was released.  Pepita still lives in Kerala.

In 2001, with the encouragement of Guruvayur Temple’s authorities, she began a book about the temple entitled, Heaven on Earth: the Universe of Kerala’s Guruvayur Temple, which was published in 2009. In 2012 the Indian Government awarded her the Padma Shri the fourth highest civilian honor in India.

She has also published two novels, The Spirit Land (1994) and The Edge of Another World (2015).