Meet Raakh's breakout star Ramandeep, who once played cricket with Arshdeep Singh
Acor Ramandeep Yadav recalled landing Prime Video's Raakh when he was close to leaving Mumbai. The role has become his breakthrough after years of rejection and an intense journey into Rajjo's mind.
There are breakthrough stories, and then there are stories that seem almost scripted. Actor Ramandeep Yadav's journey belongs firmly in the latter category. The actor has found overnight stardom with his performance in the Prime Video series Raakh, where he plays Rajjo, a character inspired by Ranga of the infamous Ranga-Billa duo responsible for the 1978 murder of two children in Delhi.
India Today spoke to Yadav about his sudden rise to fame, the challenge of portraying one of Delhi's most feared criminals, and the journey that brought him here.
Not too long ago, Yadav had begun making peace with the idea that acting perhaps wasn't meant for him. Four years had passed since Netflix's 2022 show CAT, auditions came and went, meaningful work remained elusive, and Mumbai was becoming increasingly difficult to survive in. The Chandigarh-born actor was seriously considering returning home when a call for a Prime Video series landed in his inbox.
Today, Raakh has turned him into one of the most talked-about new faces on OTT. As Rajjo – the soft-spoken pickpocket who gradually descends into one of the show's most unsettling characters – Ramandeep Yadav has left audiences disturbed, emotional and impressed in equal measure.
Interestingly, before acting became his identity, cricket was his dream. The actor once represented Haryana in age-group cricket alongside India pacer Arshdeep Singh, before life unexpectedly took him from the pitch to the screen. While speaking to us, he looked back at almost quitting acting, the gruelling audition that left his body bruised, why he studied cockroaches to build Rajjo's psyche, and the one scene from Raakh that still refuses to leave him.
"I had almost decided to leave Mumbai"
He's excited as he picks up the call – like a child in a candy store who's finally enjoying that one candy he has been long searching for. The energy in his voice is visible. He understands that he's going to spend the next few minutes talking about himself, his life before and after Rajjo. He starts speaking about how Raakh happened to him.
Yadav doesn't romanticise his struggle. He speaks about it with remarkable honesty. "When this opportunity came to me, I had almost given up. It had been nearly four years since CAT and I didn't have anything concrete coming my way. Financially, things weren't working out, and I was actually thinking of leaving Mumbai," he tells us.
The audition reached him while he was in Chandigarh. Instead of treating it as another test, he chose to believe it meant something more. "I genuinely felt it was a sign from God. It was probably the first time someone had asked me to audition for a lead role. I told myself, 'I have to give everything I have to Rajjo.'"
What followed was one of the longest and most physically demanding auditions of his life.
The story of a 12-hour audition
In the second episode of Raakh, Rajjo and Babu clash over a child's murder, leading to a violent confrontation. The now-famous sequence wasn't just another scene, it was Yadav's audition. A visible sense of nostalgia creeps into his voice as he recalls that day: the gruelling hours, the repeated takes, and his determination not to give up.
He reached the casting studio at 10 in the morning and didn't leave until 10 at night. "There were around 14 actors auditioning for Babu. I had to perform the same fight sequence with each one of them. Sometimes we'd do one take, sometimes four. After a point, I stopped remembering faces and only remembered numbers," he recalls with a laugh.
Despite spending nearly 12 hours repeating intense fight choreography, Yadav refused to take a break. The 29-year-old adds, "The casting team kept telling me, 'Take a break if you're tired.' But I said no. This opportunity was as important for every actor standing there as it was for me. I didn't want anyone to feel I wasn't giving my hundred percent."
The dedication came at a cost. "When I woke up the next day, my body was swollen. I had bruises everywhere. I even sent pictures to the casting team because I had another audition scheduled. They looked at my condition and gave me a day's break," he says.
Before Rajjo, there was cricket, and Arshdeep Singh
Long before cameras entered his life, Ramandeep Yadav believed he would one day wear the India jersey. Born in Chandigarh, he represented Haryana in Under-14, Under-16 and Under-19 cricket, and even attended state camps alongside several future professionals. "I wanted to play for India," he says matter-of-factly.
Among his teammates was none other than India's fast bowler Arshdeep Singh. "Arshdeep and I played together. At that time, Chandigarh had two teams – one linked to Haryana and another to Punjab. He later shifted to Punjab, but we played together in those early days."
Looking back now, he smiles at how life quietly rewrote his plans. "Acting became a detour. I never imagined it would become my life." There's no sense of regret in Yadav's voice. As if he's content with where he is and where he wants to be.
"I couldn't judge Rajjo"
Rajjo's arc in Raakh is deeply unsettling. He begins as a pickpocket desperate to survive before slowly turning into someone capable of unimaginable violence. For Ramandeep Yadav, the biggest challenge wasn't portraying evil, it was refusing to judge it.
"When Raman read the script, I cried," he says, adding, "I reacted exactly the way people react after watching the show. But once I had to become Rajjo, I couldn't think like Raman any more. As an actor, I needed conviction. I had to believe that whatever Rajjo was doing made sense from his point of view."
The actor says he and the creative team built an elaborate backstory that never even appears on the screen. "We imagined where he came from, what his childhood looked like, why he desperately wanted validation. Rajjo is someone nobody notices. Then Babu enters his life and suddenly someone sees him. It almost becomes a toxic relationship," Yadav tells us.
More than a born criminal, Ramandeep saw Rajjo as someone shaped by circumstances. He says, "The best thing about him is that he isn't brutal in the beginning. You slowly watch how a criminal is made."
While most actors prepare through films, books or documentaries, Ramandeep Yadav found one of Rajjo's biggest inspirations crawling around his house. "We connected Rajjo with a cockroach," he says with genuine excitement. "Its only instinct is survival." That metaphor slowly became an obsession. "I started recording videos of cockroaches on my phone just to study how they behaved," he adds.
It may sound bizarre, but for Ramandeep Yadav, the experience helped him understand a man who clings to survival at any cost. There was a method to the character's madness, and Yadav spoke about it with the confidence of someone who had found his way into that troubled mind.
"Every take felt like I had killed someone"
On August 26, 1978, Delhi siblings Geeta and Sanjay Chopra, aged 16 and 14, were abducted while waiting for a lift to All India Radio, where they were due to participate in a programme. Inside the kidnappers' car, the teenagers were assaulted, with Geeta resisting fiercely to protect her younger brother.
Both were eventually murdered, and their bodies were found days later on the outskirts of Delhi. The brutal crime shocked the nation, sparked widespread public outrage, and led to the conviction and eventual execution of Kuljeet Singh (Ranga) and Jasbir Singh (Billa) in 1982.
If there's one memory from Raakh that still unsettles him, it is the car sequence where Rajjo is forced into committing an unthinkable act. The actor falls silent before speaking about it. He narrates, "We weren't even shooting at a real location. It was a digital setup. But I had immersed myself so deeply in Rajjo that after every take, I genuinely felt like I had killed someone."
The feeling lingered long after the cameras stopped rolling. "Even now, while talking about it, I can feel it. I don't want to feel it again. I couldn't leave Rajjo on set. Even after pack-up, he stayed with me," Yadav says.
Watch Raakh trailer here:
A breakthrough year in the making
In Raakh, Yadav co-stars with Akash Makhija, Ali Fazal, Sonali Bendre, Aamir Bashir and Anshul Chauhan. For someone who spent years hearing "no", Raakh feels less like an overnight success and more like delayed recognition. "I've never received such a big opportunity before," he says.
Recalling the preparation and now looking at the response, he hopes the series changes one thing. "Maybe after this, I won't have to keep telling people, 'My name is Ramandeep,'" he says.
Before signing off, he has one message for every struggling actor waiting outside audition rooms – "We all hear 'no' every day. Every actor goes through rejection. But one opportunity can change everything. I just want people to keep working hard because something will eventually happen that makes people notice you."
For now, the boy who once waited outside the audition rooms hoping to be noticed is finally being recognised. And if Yadav's story proves anything, it is that success sometimes comes to those who keep showing up, even when all they hear is "no."
Directed by Prosit Roy, Raakh is now streaming on Prime Video.
There are breakthrough stories, and then there are stories that seem almost scripted. Actor Ramandeep Yadav's journey belongs firmly in the latter category. The actor has found overnight stardom with his performance in the Prime Video series Raakh, where he plays Rajjo, a character inspired by Ranga of the infamous Ranga-Billa duo responsible for the 1978 murder of two children in Delhi.
India Today spoke to Yadav about his sudden rise to fame, the challenge of portraying one of Delhi's most feared criminals, and the journey that brought him here.
Not too long ago, Yadav had begun making peace with the idea that acting perhaps wasn't meant for him. Four years had passed since Netflix's 2022 show CAT, auditions came and went, meaningful work remained elusive, and Mumbai was becoming increasingly difficult to survive in. The Chandigarh-born actor was seriously considering returning home when a call for a Prime Video series landed in his inbox.
Today, Raakh has turned him into one of the most talked-about new faces on OTT. As Rajjo – the soft-spoken pickpocket who gradually descends into one of the show's most unsettling characters – Ramandeep Yadav has left audiences disturbed, emotional and impressed in equal measure.
Interestingly, before acting became his identity, cricket was his dream. The actor once represented Haryana in age-group cricket alongside India pacer Arshdeep Singh, before life unexpectedly took him from the pitch to the screen. While speaking to us, he looked back at almost quitting acting, the gruelling audition that left his body bruised, why he studied cockroaches to build Rajjo's psyche, and the one scene from Raakh that still refuses to leave him.
"I had almost decided to leave Mumbai"
He's excited as he picks up the call – like a child in a candy store who's finally enjoying that one candy he has been long searching for. The energy in his voice is visible. He understands that he's going to spend the next few minutes talking about himself, his life before and after Rajjo. He starts speaking about how Raakh happened to him.
Yadav doesn't romanticise his struggle. He speaks about it with remarkable honesty. "When this opportunity came to me, I had almost given up. It had been nearly four years since CAT and I didn't have anything concrete coming my way. Financially, things weren't working out, and I was actually thinking of leaving Mumbai," he tells us.
The audition reached him while he was in Chandigarh. Instead of treating it as another test, he chose to believe it meant something more. "I genuinely felt it was a sign from God. It was probably the first time someone had asked me to audition for a lead role. I told myself, 'I have to give everything I have to Rajjo.'"
What followed was one of the longest and most physically demanding auditions of his life.
The story of a 12-hour audition
In the second episode of Raakh, Rajjo and Babu clash over a child's murder, leading to a violent confrontation. The now-famous sequence wasn't just another scene, it was Yadav's audition. A visible sense of nostalgia creeps into his voice as he recalls that day: the gruelling hours, the repeated takes, and his determination not to give up.
He reached the casting studio at 10 in the morning and didn't leave until 10 at night. "There were around 14 actors auditioning for Babu. I had to perform the same fight sequence with each one of them. Sometimes we'd do one take, sometimes four. After a point, I stopped remembering faces and only remembered numbers," he recalls with a laugh.
Despite spending nearly 12 hours repeating intense fight choreography, Yadav refused to take a break. The 29-year-old adds, "The casting team kept telling me, 'Take a break if you're tired.' But I said no. This opportunity was as important for every actor standing there as it was for me. I didn't want anyone to feel I wasn't giving my hundred percent."
The dedication came at a cost. "When I woke up the next day, my body was swollen. I had bruises everywhere. I even sent pictures to the casting team because I had another audition scheduled. They looked at my condition and gave me a day's break," he says.
Before Rajjo, there was cricket, and Arshdeep Singh
Long before cameras entered his life, Ramandeep Yadav believed he would one day wear the India jersey. Born in Chandigarh, he represented Haryana in Under-14, Under-16 and Under-19 cricket, and even attended state camps alongside several future professionals. "I wanted to play for India," he says matter-of-factly.
Among his teammates was none other than India's fast bowler Arshdeep Singh. "Arshdeep and I played together. At that time, Chandigarh had two teams – one linked to Haryana and another to Punjab. He later shifted to Punjab, but we played together in those early days."
Looking back now, he smiles at how life quietly rewrote his plans. "Acting became a detour. I never imagined it would become my life." There's no sense of regret in Yadav's voice. As if he's content with where he is and where he wants to be.
"I couldn't judge Rajjo"
Rajjo's arc in Raakh is deeply unsettling. He begins as a pickpocket desperate to survive before slowly turning into someone capable of unimaginable violence. For Ramandeep Yadav, the biggest challenge wasn't portraying evil, it was refusing to judge it.
"When Raman read the script, I cried," he says, adding, "I reacted exactly the way people react after watching the show. But once I had to become Rajjo, I couldn't think like Raman any more. As an actor, I needed conviction. I had to believe that whatever Rajjo was doing made sense from his point of view."
The actor says he and the creative team built an elaborate backstory that never even appears on the screen. "We imagined where he came from, what his childhood looked like, why he desperately wanted validation. Rajjo is someone nobody notices. Then Babu enters his life and suddenly someone sees him. It almost becomes a toxic relationship," Yadav tells us.
More than a born criminal, Ramandeep saw Rajjo as someone shaped by circumstances. He says, "The best thing about him is that he isn't brutal in the beginning. You slowly watch how a criminal is made."
While most actors prepare through films, books or documentaries, Ramandeep Yadav found one of Rajjo's biggest inspirations crawling around his house. "We connected Rajjo with a cockroach," he says with genuine excitement. "Its only instinct is survival." That metaphor slowly became an obsession. "I started recording videos of cockroaches on my phone just to study how they behaved," he adds.
It may sound bizarre, but for Ramandeep Yadav, the experience helped him understand a man who clings to survival at any cost. There was a method to the character's madness, and Yadav spoke about it with the confidence of someone who had found his way into that troubled mind.
"Every take felt like I had killed someone"
On August 26, 1978, Delhi siblings Geeta and Sanjay Chopra, aged 16 and 14, were abducted while waiting for a lift to All India Radio, where they were due to participate in a programme. Inside the kidnappers' car, the teenagers were assaulted, with Geeta resisting fiercely to protect her younger brother.
Both were eventually murdered, and their bodies were found days later on the outskirts of Delhi. The brutal crime shocked the nation, sparked widespread public outrage, and led to the conviction and eventual execution of Kuljeet Singh (Ranga) and Jasbir Singh (Billa) in 1982.
If there's one memory from Raakh that still unsettles him, it is the car sequence where Rajjo is forced into committing an unthinkable act. The actor falls silent before speaking about it. He narrates, "We weren't even shooting at a real location. It was a digital setup. But I had immersed myself so deeply in Rajjo that after every take, I genuinely felt like I had killed someone."
The feeling lingered long after the cameras stopped rolling. "Even now, while talking about it, I can feel it. I don't want to feel it again. I couldn't leave Rajjo on set. Even after pack-up, he stayed with me," Yadav says.
Watch Raakh trailer here:
A breakthrough year in the making
In Raakh, Yadav co-stars with Akash Makhija, Ali Fazal, Sonali Bendre, Aamir Bashir and Anshul Chauhan. For someone who spent years hearing "no", Raakh feels less like an overnight success and more like delayed recognition. "I've never received such a big opportunity before," he says.
Recalling the preparation and now looking at the response, he hopes the series changes one thing. "Maybe after this, I won't have to keep telling people, 'My name is Ramandeep,'" he says.
Before signing off, he has one message for every struggling actor waiting outside audition rooms – "We all hear 'no' every day. Every actor goes through rejection. But one opportunity can change everything. I just want people to keep working hard because something will eventually happen that makes people notice you."
For now, the boy who once waited outside the audition rooms hoping to be noticed is finally being recognised. And if Yadav's story proves anything, it is that success sometimes comes to those who keep showing up, even when all they hear is "no."
Directed by Prosit Roy, Raakh is now streaming on Prime Video.
