I was a better player than Dhoni’

It was destiny that made the tall and handsome Rahul Raj Singh an actor. Hailing from a respectable family of doctors in Ranchi, Jharkhand, it was natural that he too would join medical college.

“A fashion designer asked me to do a fashion shoot in Kolkata and I did it just to get money to refuel my car. The shoot became a huge hit in Kolkata and one thing led to another,” says Rahul who soon found himself modelling for some of the top designers and brands in the country.

He got his first break in television with the challenging and gritty role of the visually-challenged Kunal in the TV soap Amber Dhara. He is currently working in the show Mata Ki Chowki on SaharaOne. “It is a family drama and not a mythological serial,” he clarifies. The entire cast and crew had an extensive 15 day shoot in Bhadarwa (also known as mini Kashmir), a small town about 250 kms away from Jammu. Rahul enjoyed the experience of shooting in this picturesque town and was amazed at the hospitality extended to them.

This 6’2” tall actor was also a state level cricketer and has also played cricket with Mahendra Singh Dhoni before he became captain of Indian cricket team. “I was a better player than Dhoni,” he says. However, a prolonged bout of typhoid followed by paratyphoid made him take a forced absence from the game, which ended his cricket career. Incidentally, his family also has a rich heritage of cricket with his mother being the first woman cricket captain of Bihar. “Along with a few of my actor friends like Jay Bhanushali, Ayub Khan, Ali Merchant etc, have set up a team to play good cricket,” he says.