Vinay Pathak

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From MBA to theater Vinay Pathak’s amazing turn around Vinay Pathak was born in Dhanbad, Bihar. He lived in a joined family with 9 siblings and cousins. Since childhood he loved reading stories from Chanda Mama to Enid Blyton to Alberto Moravia. He was a keen observer and credits his quality of observation that made him a good actor. However readers would be surprised to know that as a child he never thought of taking acting as a career. He was a studious student and good at academics. He passed his SSC from Vikas Vidyalaya of Ranchi with flying color. Later he attended Allahabad University and then went to New York’s Stony Brook University to pursue MBA. While studying MBA, he happened to see a play Equus by Peter Shaffer. Interestingly, analyzing a play was part of his MBA degree hence he got the opportunity to watch the play for 8 nights. Later he realized that his real interest lay in theatre and quit MBA and joined Drama School.

He had an arranged marriage to Sonika Sahay.

Vinay Pathak came to Mumbai with return ticket After learning at drama school and dabbling with theater performing William Shakespeare plays like King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet and As You Like It etc. Vinay Pathak came to Mumbai to try his luck in films in 1998. He had landed in Mumbai with a return ticket. He gave six months time to succeed or else move back to Bihar, his home town. Every day he went for audition and did every small role offered to him. Readers would be surprised to know that he even became a chicken and would stand dressed in chicken costume for a few hours and play with the kids outside Pudgy’s Chicken to make an earning. However his woes ended as Pathak bagged a TV show with Om Puri within his first six months in Mumbai. His first major break was as a VJ on Channel [V] with Ranvir Shorey that paid him well to keep his struggle going. The show was called House Arrest (1998). With Khosla Ka Ghosla Vinay Pathak tasted real success Vinay Pathak made his debut in films working with intelligent directors, even if it meant a small or insignificant role. Thus he began with Mira Nair’s Fire (1998) where he played a tour guide at the Taj Mahal. Later he did a cameo in Sanjay Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), Mahesh Bhatt’s Jism (2003) etc. After a gap of eight long years Vinay Pathak eventually got the role that brought a turning point in his career and helped him become a star. As the clever travel agent Asif Iqbal in Dibakar Banerjee’s Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006) Vinay Pathak gave a memorable role that won him rave reviews and the film industry took him seriously as a good comedian on horizon. Vinay Pathak became a part of commercial cinema After Khosla Ka Ghosla, Vinay Pathak created ripples with his slapstick comedy in Bheja Fry and became a star comedian. He was signed by commercial filmmaker beginning with Yash Raj Films signing him opposite ShahRukh Khan in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and opposite Madhuri Dixit in Aaja Nachle. He was signed by film director Sriram Raghavan in Johnny Gadaar opposite Bollywood veteran actor Dharmendra and opposite Varun Dhanvan in Badlapur, Karan Johar signed him opposite ShahRukh Khan in My name is Khan etc. On one hand Vinay Pathak made name and fame in commercial cinema, he kept to his roots doing his style of cinema, intelligent and thought provoking parallel cinema like Rajat Kapoor’s Mithya, Shashant Shah’ Dasvidaniya, Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s Ek Tho Chance, Deepa Mehta’s Midnight's Children, Ruchika Oberoi’s Island City, Anant Mahadevan’s Gour Hari Dastaan