Raghubir Yadav is an Indian movie, television and stage actor born on 25 June, 1957 in Jabalpur. He is also a singer, music composer and set designer. His debut film in the industry was Massey Sahib (1985) in which he played the title role of movie. He has been awarded with two International Awards being Best Actor in FIPRESCI Critic's Award in 1986 and the Best Actor Silver Peacock, IIFI in 1987. It is quite unusual that an artist with that much talent in so many areas has not received a National Award. Raghubir Yadav is from the 1977 batch at National School of Drama, New Delhi and has specialization in stagecraft. About his journey, he has worked as a singer and actor in more than 70 plays and had done almost 2500 live shows with Parsi Theatre Company starting at an age of 15 from 1967 to 1973 where they used to go from one village to another, cities and towns in caravans. After this he shifted to Rangoli Puppet Theatre for 1 year and used to perform with glove puppets. In National School of Drama, he was part of 40 plays and did more than 2000 shows and also showed his art in costume, mask and set designing. He had worked in many legendary films out of which three got nominations for Academy Awards in Best Foreign Language film.
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Raghubir Yadav’s most applauded role was of a drug addict Chillum in Salaam Bombay and he also worked in Firaaq and in Dear Friend Hitler as the lead. In the music department, he has contributed a lot to the film industry. He had worked in movies such as Delhi-6 as narrator of Ramleela based on a story of a boy coming from foreign to his grandmother, Ramji Londonwaley based on a villager cook’s journey in London and
Darna Mana Hai
, a school teacher in this horror movie made by Ram Gopal Verma based on six horror stories,
Aaja Nachle
story of a London returned choreographer to save the dance theatre from getting demolished by her talent,
Gandhi To Hitler
,
Thanks Maa
, Peepli Live based on a poor farmer and him becoming famous in media due to his confession to suicide. He also sang the title track of
Chacha Chaudhary
serial. His song, Mehngai Dayain in Peepli Live was acclaimed by audiences due to its words and presence in society.
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He has given voice to various ads such as Coke, Vim, Pepsi, Parle, Kotak Mahindra, Icy Cool, Maggie Mania, Britannia and several others. He has also composed Music for Ghashiram Kotwal and Chacha Chaudhary. He composed and sang the Maggie Mania and conceived, written & composed Raamleela for movie Delhi-6. One of his recent collaborations is the one in which he sang with
Hitesh Sonik
the song Lamh Tera in the episode of MTV Coke Studio Season 2.
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He started his television career with the show Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne (1990), in which he played the lead character 'Mungerilal'. After that he did the role of Haji Nasruddin in show Mulla Naseeruddin and lead in the TV show Chacha Chaudhary based on famous Intelligent Indian comic character Chacha Chaudhary whose mind works faster than computer and gained popularity especially amongst children. He also played the title role in Arjun Pandit. His recent movie project was Piku co-starring
Amitabh Bachchan
and
Deepika Padukone
as Dr. Shrivastava. Raghuvir Yadav has been in depression due to his first wife Poornima from which he got separated but she kept on harassing him for money and also due to behavior of his son Achal towards him. He said music was his sole support in the days of depression.