Sushant Singh Rajput

Sushant Singh Rajput was a popular Indian actor who worked in both Hindi Films and television. He got popular with his Bollywood movie "M.S. Dhoni- the untold story", a biopic of the Indian Cricket Team's captain. He won several awards and was starred in many Indian Movies (lead and supportive both) and two daily T.V. dramas. He also appeared in Forbes Indian Celebrity Top 100 two times.

His early life and education

Sushant was born on 21st January 1986 in Patna, Bihar, as the son of Usha Singh and Krishna Kumar Singh. His father worked as a technical officer (now retired) at Bihar State Handloom Corporation in Patna. He was the youngest Sibling of his four sisters and was nicknamed "Gulshan". His sister "Mitu Singh" is a state-level Cricketer.

In primary days, he went to "St. Karen High School", located in Patna. After his mother died in 2002, His family moved to Delhi, where he completed his schooling at "Kulanchi Hansraj Model School".

He was a brilliant student as he won the National Olympiad in Physics and also qualified for numerous engineering entrance exams, and was ranked as AIR-7 in Delhi Common Entrance. But as once told by him, he wasn't interested in engineering and wanted to join Air Force as a Fighter Pilot or became an Astronaut. He had an interest in Bollywood and was a huge fan of Shah Rukh Khan. But because of his family pressure, He joined Delhi College of Engineering for pursuing a bachelor of engineering in Mechanical Engineering.

His career as a Television Actor

The journey of Sushant's career is also like a movie in itself. While he was in college, he started taking dance classes in Shaimak Davarak's classes. After few days, he started taking Acting classes too from a theatre Director "Barry John" and enjoyed it. In the 4th year of his Engineering, He decided of making his career in art and performance and left college.

In 2006, after leaving his engineering, he went to Mumbai and got a chance to feature in "Dhoom Again" song starred by Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom 2 movie and also her closing performance in commonwealth game in 2006. He took many odd jobs and small roles in starting and also Joined Nadira Babbar's theatre group "E.K. Jute" and worked for two and half years there.

While working for the "Prithvi Theatre", he was spotted by the "Balaji Telefilms" casting team and was called for an audition. He secured the role of "Preet Singh Juneja", which was a second lead role. Still, his character was killed in the middle show but brought back at the end as the spirit that his family was looking for. He left an amazing impression with his performance, and the show producer "Ekta Kapoor" recalled him and offered him a lead role as "Manav Deshmukh" in her next show "Pavitra Rishta", which was telecasted by Zee TV and was against the channels wish. This show's female lead was Ankita Lokhande (his co-star who played Archna Deshmukh in the show), and it was proven as the big break for him. He became very popular and was very well known in Indian families as an ideal son and husband because of his character.

In 2010, he won his first award as best actor in Indian Television Academy Award. He acted in the show for two and half years and left the show in 2011, but while working in the show, he won many shows and was also featured in the last episode in 2014. He also worked in some reality shows as; in 2010, he joined the show "Zara Nachke Dikha" and gave an emotional and memorizing performance in his mother's memory on Mother's day special. In the same year, he joined the show "Jhalak Dikhla Ja" and ended up as runner-up in the show and was getting popular when he proposed his co-star Ankita In the middle show.

In 2011, when he left the sets of Pavitra Rishta, he went immediately to the United States to study Film making. He worked as the Assistance Director in the popular Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, and the Adhyan Suman starer Bollywood movie "Raaz 2".

Sushant as Bollywood Actor

In 2011, during his film-making course, he got an invitation to auditions for "Mukesh Chabhra's movie Kai Po Che" and accepted it. He played the role of Ishaan Bhatt, a district-level cricketer who faced many difficulties because of Politics and was a lead role along with Rajkumar Rao and Amit Shade. This movie was based on popular Indian author Chetan Bhagat's novel The three mistakes of my life based on three friends who were the victims of Gujarat's Riots and earthquakes in 2001 and 2002. Shushant got a nomination for the best debut actor in the Film Fare Award because of his excellent performance in the movie.

Before signing "Kai Po Che", Sushant was signed for Rajkumar Hirani's film "P.K." in which he played the supporting role of Anushka Sharma's boyfriend. Later, he also signed the Yash Raj banner's film "Shudh Desi Romance" this movie was a comedy film that went "sleeper hit", and he played roles against Vaani Kapoor and Parineeti Kapoor. At the same time, P.K. was India's most grossing movie in 2014. In 2013, Sushant signed one more movie with Yashraj Films named Detective Byomkesh Bakshy. This film was a fail, but because of its suspense action- thrill concept, it made a different image of Sushant as one of the finest actors in India. Also, to promote the movie, Sushant made a cameo in the T.V. show "CID" which was a police crime drama and aired on "Sony T.V.". In 2014, Shushant started working on the new project "Paani", which was a movie based on future water issues. Still, in 2015, the project was suspended because Yashraj films walked out, and this was the point where Sushant ended his contract with the publication house.

In the year 2011, Indian Captain Mahindra Singh Dhoni's manager Arun Pandey decided to create a biopic movie on his life, but because of numerous issues even from Dhoni (demand of high royalty) and BCCI's (Board of Council Cricket in India) side but in 2014 Sushant was signed as the lead (Dhoni) in the movie. For this movie, Sushant learned Cricket from coach Kiran More for 13 months as he wasn't that amazing in the game and needed to adopt Dhoni's Style. The movie was focused on the starting days of Dhoni's life while he was trying to get his place in Indian Cricket time and his amazing performance as an Indian Cricket team captain in the world cup 2011. This movie was released on 2nd October 2016 and became India's 5th high grossing Bollywood movie. This movie was a plus to his career. He got nominated in many awards for his memorable performance in the movie, such as the film fare Award, the International Indian Film Academy Awards, and a captivating nomination at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. In 2018, he made a cameo in the film "Welcome to New York", in which the actor confused him with M.S. Dhoni.

While he was shooting for Dhoni, He got signed for five more movies Raabta, Takadom, Chanda Mama Door Ke, and a biopic on Indian athletics. The first one was Raabta, which was with Alia Bhatt, but later Alia said no to the project, and Kriti Sanon was signed as the female lead of the movie. But this movie was a super flop that it couldn't even get cost equal to the production cost, but Kriti and Sushant were again cast for a song "Pass Aao" in 2017 sung by Armaan and Amaal Mallik. In 2017, he was featured in the Forbes India top 100 Indian celebrity list.

The second biopic he signed was "Murli- The unsung hero", which was based on disabled "Jawan" turned Paralympics gold medalist "Murlikant Petkar" and a movie with Irrfan Khan and Parineeti Chopra named as Takdhom. Still, the shooting of this movie was being held because of script re-adaption. After some days in 2016, he started working in a movie "Chanda Mama Door Ke" with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and R. Madhvan, for which he trained in NASA in 2017. Later the same year, he signed a spy thriller named "Romeo Akbar Walter", but because of some issues with the producer, he walked out of the movie.

In March 2017, Shushant started working on a movie named "Drive" by Dharma Production along with Jacqueline Fernandez, which was a prequel of "Bang Bang" started by Hritik Roshan and also signed a movie produced by Ekta Kapoor and directed by Abhishek Kapoor named as "Kedarnath". Sushant worked very hard for the movie and was expecting it to be a big hit, but because of so much controversy and even called for a ban by "Bhartiya Janta Party" as according to them, this movie was promoting "love jihad", but after facing numerous issues. Two postpones on the release date, the final movie released on 7th December 2018 but wasn't that big hit as it was supposed to be, but it was still the second-highest grossed movie of Sushant's career.

In 2018, Sushant started shooting for "Sonchiriya" with Bhoomi Pednekar, Manoj Bajpayee, Ranvir Shorey, and Ashutosh Raina. It was a periodic drama in which he played the role of Lakhan; this movie was released in March 2019 and got a positive response from a critic. In the Meantime, Sushant signed his new project, "Chichore", which was a comedy Romance based on college life with a very great social message. This was a multi-star movie and was a super hit with a great craze among the young public. The film won the "National Film award" for best featured Hindi film.

Since 2017, Sushant was assigned as the male lead of the Hollywood movie "The fault in our stars" Hindi remake, which was a directorial debut of Mukesh Chabbra. This movie was based on the novel of John Green with the same name and was set to be released in 2019. Still, later the movie was renamed "Dil Bechara", and the released date shifted to 2020. Still, because of COVID 19 pandemic, it wasn't able to release on fix date and unfortunately became the last film by him and released after his death, but this movie was a record-breaker and became the highest viewed movie in 24 hours.

His entrepreneurial debut and work

In May 2018, Sushant joined the company "Innsaei Ventures" as the partner and was appointed as one of three directors, and the other two are Varun Mathur and Saurabh Mishra. Within a week, he was also signed by NITI Aayog for being the brand ambassador of "Women Empowerment Platform" and promoting BHIM mobile payment app. Inner Ventures decided on a fund of 20 Crores in favor of the Women Empowerment Platform. In 2018, Sushant announced his company's first project on 12 Biopic series of various Indian history characters from 540 to 2015 C.E. In September 2019, Sushant joined another company named Vividrage Rhealtyx one of three directors of the company other two were Rhea Chakraborty and Showik Chakraborty. In January 2020, Sushant founded an NGO (Non- profit Organization) and named it Front India for the world foundation, which works for poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. Sushant donated one crore to the 2018 Kerala floods in the Chief Minister Relief Fund on behalf of one of his fans. In 2019, Sushant was featured in the Forbes annual top celebrity list for the second time.

Let's talk a little bit about his personal life.

Sushant's personal life, especially relationships, has always been a topic for his fans and media. He publicly proposed his Pavitra Rishta Co-star Ankita, and they started dating on the sets of Pavitra Rishta. They were again in media when they started living together in 2012 as they secretly performed the marriage, but both couples denied it. In 2016, Sushant confirmed that they would have a lavish marriage in December, but they both ended their relationship before that. After few years in 2021, Ankita told the media that Sushant wanted to pursue his career and ended their relationship.

After ending his relation, Sushant was still in media because of his relationship with different actresses. In 2017, when he started working in Raabta, he was said to be dating Kriti Sanon, but later it was just proven as a rumor and denied by both actors. The same year he was again media when he came in support of Padmavat producer Rajput Karni Saini.

Later in 2018, Sushant was again in the news with the rumor of dating Saif Ali Khan's daughter and actress Sara Ali Khan; they both neither accepted nor refused about this and stayed between them, but in 2019, Sushant was claimed to be seen with Rhea Chakraborty (popular Bollywood actress). After his Death, Rhea accepted that they were dating, and Sushant wasn't ready to take anti-depression medications and trusted Yoga. According to his father, Sushant was planning to marry in 2021 but didn't tell him about the bride.

Apart from his love life, while shooting for "Chanda Mama Door Ke", Shushant, who already had an interest in Astronomy and Astrophysics, started reading books related to that and had a collection of 125 books on Physics too. He bought many other books as he was an active book reader and also had an interest in Cognitive Science and Behavioral Economics.

Sushant's Death

On 14th June 2020, this young age actor (34 years) was found dead in his bedroom hanging from the Ceiling Fan in his Bandra Home, Mumbai. This was a shock for the entire Bollywood and even his fans. Still, in the primary reports, it was claimed as "Suicide" as there were symptoms of Clinical Depression and Bipolar Disease. After the postmortem Report arrived, it clearly showed "asphyxia due to hanging" as the cause of death, and according to the doctors, the time of Death was between 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The Case turned when Sushant's Family filed a complaint against his girlfriend Rhea and five more abetments of suicide. On 31st July, E.D. (Enforcement Directorate) found that his girlfriend, her family, and related people had taken out money from his accounts and filed a complaint against her.

In August 2020, The Supreme Court of India handled the Case to CBI (Central Bureau of India), one of India's best investigation agencies, to investigate the Case. At some time, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) also claimed that there was a drag case involvement in his Death based on the phone chats given by E.D. while investigating. They proved right when On 8th September, Rhea, his brother, and nine others were arrested by the NCB in a Drug Case linked to Sushant's Case.

In October 2020, Dr. Sudhir Gupta, Related to the All India Institute of Medical Science, New Delhi, and the medical team leader of CBI confirmed to Media (ANI news) that Sushant's Death was a clear Case of Suicide, and there was no chance of Murder. As neither there was an injury nor Sushant Struggled or fought during the time of Death. However, on 15th October, CBI said that Investigation is still going on by CBI and there is no conclusion on his Death by them, the reports in the Media aren't completely true or trustworthy.

Sushant was a rising star, and his death was a shock for everyone; his fans are still trending or talking about him on many Social Media platforms and asking for conclusions. As of now, there is no conclusion on his Death, but for sure, with his demise, we lost a very good actor. It is sad as he had an amazing career. He will always be remembered by everyone as a pure soul and a great actor.