Parikshit Sahni

Early life

He was born while his father was teaching English at Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan of Rabindranath Tagore, and his mother was doing her Bachelors. Schooled at Lawrence School, Sanawar, he went to study at Delhi's prestigious St. Stephen's College. Later, he began his career as a child artist.

Personal life

Parikshit's parents were both theatre and film actors, although his mother acted in only a couple of films before her death at an early age in 1947. His father subsequently married his own cousin sister Santosh Chandhok two years later.

He is married to director Shekhar Kapur's sister Aruna, and they have three children.

He was a good friend of late actor Sanjeev Kumar. Parikshit even changed his screen name to Ajay Sahni at the suggestion of Sanjeev Kumar during the shooting of their 1968 film Anokhi Raat, before eventually reverting to his own name a few years later.

Career

One of his most famous films is 3 Idiots. where he got appreciation for playing R. Madhavan's father. He had a major role in the TV series Heena as Nawab Mirza, Heena's father. Heena ended in 2003. Sahni played the role of Veer Singh (Kaka-sa) on the popular Zee serial Saat Phere opposite Nivedita Bhattacharya.

He starred in the classic Punjabi film Marhi Da Diva (1989), with Raj Babbar, Pankaj Kapur, Kanwaljit Singh, and Deepti Naval. He played a remarkable role in the Hindi film Pavitra Paapi (1970) which was based on a Punjabi novel by Nanak Singh (a famous novelist).

He acted in the Doordarshan television series The Great Maratha as Malhar Rao Holkar.