Sushant Singh Rajput was an Indian actor-dancer who worked in Bollywood. He was born on January 21, 1986 in Patna, Bihar and he passed away on June 14, 2020 in Mumbai, Maharashtra. He had started his career in television in the soap opera called Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil, but he was most popular for his role in the soap opera Pavitra Rishta from 2009 to 2011 in which he starred opposite his then girlfriend Ankitaa Lokhaande. Sushant Singh Rajput has also been part of two dance realty shows and was earlier a background dancer.
Sushant Singh Rajput made his Bollywood debut in 2013 in the movie Kai Po Che! as one of the three male leads. The movie was based on Chetan Bhagat's book The 3 Mistakes of My Life. Sushant was seen in Shuddh Desi Romance in the same year, opposite Parineeti Chopra and Vaani Kapoor. In 2014, he was seen in a cameo of a Pakistani Muslim in the Aamir Khan-Anushka Sharma movie PK, followed by the film Detective Byomkesh Bakshy in 2015 where he played the title role. Sushant Singh Rajput was hugely appreciated in his 2016 movie, the biopic M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, where he played the role of Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Sushant was hugely appreciated for his act as MS Dhoni, but his next film Raabta opposite Kriti Sanon was a flop.
Sushant Singh Rajput's father worked as a government official in Patna. During his childhood days, Sushant was very close to his mother. She died when he was appearing for his 12th Board examination and it was the same year when they moved to Delhi from Patna, in the year 2000. Sushant is the youngest in the family and has four elder sisters. His mother's death left him devastated. While being a contestant on Zara Nachke Dikha, on the Mother's Day Special episode, his team dedicated a performance to his mother.
Sushant did his schooling first from St Karen's High School in Patna and then completed at the Kulachi Hansraj Model School. Sushant had a good academic record and he was a national Olympiad winner in Physics. Further, he secured the All-India Rank 7 in the All India Engineering Entrance Examination AIEEE. He also cleared as many as 11 engineering entrance exams and then enrolled for studying Mechanical Engineering at the Delhi College of Engineering. While studying mechanical engineering, he got enrolled in Shiamak Davar's dance class.
Until then, Sushant didn't have any intention in making a career in acting. While attending the dance class, he noticed a few of students were trying to enter films and were attending Barry John's theatre classes. Sushant also began attending the drama class and found his passion in acting. He was also selected as a member of Davar's standard dance troupe and was chosen to be in one of the group of background dancers at the 51st Filmfare Awards in 2005.
In the 2006 Commonwealth Games, Sushant Singh Rajput was a part of the troupe that performed in the cultural programme at the opening ceremony of the games in Australia. Sushant started to focus on his dance and acting more than his studies and he was tired of his engineering classrooms. He then dropped out of engineering and devoted himself completely to acting and dancing. To focus more on acting, Sushant moved to Mumbai and joined Nadira Babbar's Ekjute theatre group and remained there for two-and-a-half years.
At the same time, he tried his hands at modelling and was also featured in TV advertisement of Nestle Munch. He got his first break in 2008 after he was spotted by Balaji Telefilms while he was acting on stage for one of the Ekjutes plays. They invited him for audition and then he got the role in the soap opera Kis Desh Mein Hai Mera Dil. His character name was Preet Juneja but he was killed quite early in the show. However due to his character being popular in the audience, he was brought back in the season finale in the form of spirit.
In 2009, Sushant began starring in Pavitra Rishta and he was most popular for his character in this show. He played the character of Manav Deshmukh and had a very serious and mature character in the opera. His popularity in the show increased widely and he also received critical acclaims for his role. Sushant for his role received three major television awards for best male actor and most popular actor.
While shooting for Pavitra Rishta, Sushant also participated in Zara Nachke Dikha 2 to establish that he has good dancing skills. He then participated in another dance based reality show , Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 4. In October 2011, he decided to quit Pavitra Rishta and decided to pursue a film-making course abroad. Sushant made his debut in Bollywood in 2013 in Abhishek Kapoors Kai Po Che!. Sushant had to audition for the role in the movie and the movie is based on Chetan Bhagats novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life. In Kai Po Che!, Sushant played the role of Ishaan Bhatt who is an ex-district level cricketer and who later becomes a victim of politics. His debut in Bollywood was critically acclaimed and he received five award nominations and won three awards for Best Debut - Male.
After a successful debut, Sushant did his second movie alongside Pareeniti Chopra and Vaani Kapoor, Shuddh Desi Romance, directed by Maneesh Sharma and produced by Yash Raj Films. Shuddh Desi Romance dealt with the subject of live-in relationships. The film was entirely shot in Jaipur, Rajasthan and received moderate response at the box office. His next role was in the highest grossing Indian film, PK, where he played a small role of a Pakistani Muslim who is the boyfriend of an Indian journalist played by Anushka Sharma. But the main lead of the film was superstar Aamir Khan.
After doing three critically acclaimed roles in Bollywood, Sushant then worked in a parallel cinema as the title character of Detective Byomkesh Bakshy directed by Dibakar Banerjee in 2015. His performance was widely appreciated but the movie received a moderate success in the box office collection. As mentioned earlier, in 2016, Sushant Singh Rajput starred in M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story and in 2017 in Raabta.
Sushant Singh Rajput was next seen in the debut film of Sara Ali Khan, the daughter of Saif Ali Khan. The film was titled Kedarnath and was directed by his Kai Po Che! director, Abhishek Kapoor. His other films included action-comedy Drive, action movie Sonchiriya and comedy Chhichhore. His last movie was Dil Bechara which also stars stars Saif Ali Khan and debutante Sanjana Sanghi and which is set to be released on July 24, 2020.
On June 14, 2020, Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at the age of 34 at his home in Bandra, Mumbai. He had committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan. He was believed to have been suffering from depression for sometime.