Mumbai: Sushant Singh Rajput pursued Mechanical Engineering at Delhi Technological University (DTU) before making his foray into acting. Sushant made a household name with his role in popular TV show Pavitra Rishta. Later, he rose to fame on the silver screen with Abhishek Kapoor's Kai Po Che in 2013.
Born in Patna on January 21, 1986, Sushant had literally started from scratch to turn his dreams into reality. From being a background dancer to working in Ekta Kapoor's serial to expand his wings to enter Hindi cinema, he was evolving as a performer who in his own words is an "insecure actor."
His journey to the world of glitz and glamour started during his engineer days when he got himself enrolled into Shiamak Dawar's dance school and the talent in him kept him floating in the crowded industry where every Friday makes of breaks thousands of dreams.
His big moment came when he was selected over experienced dancers in Dawar's team to groove with none other than Aishwarya Rai Bachchan at Filmfare awards. For Sushant, dancing was liberating as well as it allowed him to travel the world and earn a little for himself while he was still donging DCE.
After a few years, life as an engineering student started making feel him claustrophobic. To give nurture his dreams, Sushant landed in Mumbai and joined Nadira Babbar's theatre group. When life was moving at a slow pace, television empress Ekta Kapoor entered the narrative who after watching Sushnat's look test told him, "I will make you a star". That is how Pavitra Rishta took off. The show made Sushant a household name and his dream stretched out across the sky.
His big Bollywood break was as filmy as it gets as he bumped into ace casting director Mukesh Chabra, who then was working on Kai Po Che casting. The meeting led to the audition and culminate with Sushant bagging his debut film as lead actor in Abhishek Kapoor directorial and rest, as they say, is history.
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In the following years, the actor teamed up with likes of Rajkumar Hirani, Neeraj Pandey, Dinesh Vijan, Nitesh Tiwari and others.
He excelled in films like Detective Byomkesh Bakshy helmed by Dibakar Banerjee, Neeraj's MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and Abhishek Chaubey's Sonchiriya.
Ironically, Chabra, who played a key role in Sushant getting his maiden film, will also be the director of the actor's final outing, Dil Bechara.
He once in an interview had said that the journey of Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui keeps astonishing him as they redefined norms with their acting skills. While he too was a glowing example of what an outsider brimming with talent and driven by passion can achieve.
Bollywood and social media reacted with shock and disbelief on hearing the news of the Kedarnath actor found dead at his Bandra residence on Sunday morning. He was found hanging at his home by his domestic help who alerted the police. A team of Bandra Police has rushed to investigate and details of the apparent suicide are awaited.
May you find the peace you longed for, Sushant!
