Ragesh Asthana

Ragesh was born on 17 May 1962 in Uganda. He married Jyothi in 1994 and had two children Nanaki and Yuvaraj.[3]

Ragesh debuted as an actor in 1987 in the serial Subah, directed by Bharat Rungachary, where he played the character of "Appu Swami". Ragesh had initially auditioned for the role of another character "Prem", but was rejected. He then tried for the next best role available and during the audition enacted a soliloquy from one of the plays that he had earlier acted in, which helped him bag the role of "Appu Swami".[4] He also featured in a Doordarshan serial called Inkaar, which had an anti-drugs social message. He played the role of the protagonist's best friend, who helped him to come back to normal life after the latter gave up drug addiction.

After the success of Subah, Ragesh was offered similar roles to the character he played in Subah, which caused him to reject such roles. During this time, he played small roles in episodic stories like Discovery of India by Shyam Benegal and Adhikar by Manju Sinha. After a long gap, he received the role of the rebellious Nikhil Singhani in the television series Parivartan (1993), which was telecast on Zee TV.

His work in television includes Andaaz, by Himesh Reshammiya, Shatranj, produced by Raman Kumar, Marshall, Waqt ki Raftaar and Khamoshi, by Gautam Adhikari.[4]

Apart from television, Ragesh has also worked in some films such as Taxi No. 9211, Black Friday, Rakta Charitra 2, Jaal: The Trap, Chhal, Dharini and a few others.[1][3]

Ragesh Asthana died on 20 March 2014 in Mumbai due to a heart attack.

• Ragesh Asthana at IMDb