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From NSD to global acclaim, Rasika Agashe trails a blazing path
Dubai-based Indian theatre actor Rasika Agashe is soon to launch Dreamtime Union of Artists, an international artist repertoire based in the UAE with a talent hunt show scheduled for April 2026
- PUBLISHED: Thu 29 Jan 2026, 2:22 PM
- By:
- Manju Ramanan
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At 3, this Pune girl was attracted to the stage, be it performing at small gatherings at Ganpati festival, in school skits or at home in front of guests. For those uninitiated, theatre is an integral part of most Maharashtrian homes with many families keeping a budget set aside to watch plays, never mind the social strata they came from. “My family watched a lot of plays and while growing up I wanted to be Madhuri Dixit,” giggles Rasika. That changed when she reached college—she now wanted to be like the legendary Smita Patil.
Rasika joined Fergusson College in Pune (to graduate in Sanskrit) but more so, because it had a fantastic theatre department staging Marathi plays. And as if destiny was guiding her—she met the right people at the right time, Rasika once volunteered at the Prithvi Festival that had taken place in Pune for the very first and last time. "I met veterans Geetanjali and Atul Kulkarni there and they mentored me. Also they watched a few of my plays and told me to pack my bags and enroll into the National School of Drama (NSD) after my college."
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Even before she graduated out of college, her admission to NSD was ready. Her family was aghast at her decision to move to Delhi from Pune to study theatre because she was brilliant at academics. "Theatre was looked down upon as a profession, though strangely my family were regular theatre goers. But I decided to go," she says.
At 20, Rasika moved to Delhi to the NSD and though she was homesick, there was so much work to keep her busy that she didn’t have the time to miss her family. She met her husband Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub when she was in year 2 and the couple struck a friendship and eventually married. The inter faith marriage was not easily accepted by her family though Zeeshan’s family had no issues since he is of Hindu-Muslim parentage himself. "Today though they think that my husband is the best son-in-law in the world," she laughs.
From Delhi to Mumbai
The couple settled in Delhi in 2006 and started doing theatre. “We made enough to live and sustain ourselves. But we were nourished artistically— there was art all around us, be it watching the late legendary kathak maestro Pandit Birju Maharaj performing, eminent art shows, theatre shows, you name it," she says.
They moved to Mumbai in 2009 when Zeeshan got an opportunity to study abroad. “I thought Marathi theatre was waiting for me since I was this brand new actor in town. But nothing like that happened. Instead people thought I would direct,” she says. To sustain themselves in Mumbai, Rasika started writing scripts for TV that was booming. She would occasionally act too. She wrote serials such as Chalte Chalte and acted in Phulwa, Krishnaben Khakhrawala, etc. "I did whatever I could to earn money and a living."
Moved by the Delhi rape case, she and Zeeshan then started their theatre group in 2013. “I had no idea how to protest after the Nirbhaya case except do it through a play. We started taking pieces from literature and started telling stories. We did many shows in big auditoriums as a means to protest,” she adds.
Social outreach
Social outreach through art has always been at the core of Rasika’s work and she has worked closely with the Denotified Tribes of India. “Zeeshan did a workshop with the Chhara community actor Daxin and we got introduced to them,” she adds. The Denotified Tribes were once called the Criminal Tribes in India and were labelled as genetically criminal by the British during their rule in India. As a result these tribes across India went through great oppression and institutional racism, after Indian independence. Their voices have just begun to be heard today through films and theatre.
When Zeeshan’s film Raanjhana became a hit and he started climbing the ladder of success and fame, Rasika decided to focus majorly on theatre. "When we didn’t rehearse, we would organise reading sessions from Hindi classics to keep the momentum up."
Post Covid, though, something changed. Rasika decided to focus her sights on directing—plays and films. Her film City Personified, won 10 international and state awards and was released on YouTube. Her short film Across the Table, was shot in Dubai and addresses issues on mental health. She recently staged a play on the Arabian Nights at The Junction, Dubai.
How did the move to Dubai happen? “ We came here seven years ago with a project that didn't take off but we made friends. And we moved last year for a better quality of life for our daughter Raahi who studies here.”
How is it for two creative souls to grow together? “We have creative differences and we do call out each other’s flaws at work. But that doesn’t extend to our personal lives. The altercation usually ends with another quarrel—should we order butter chicken or go for pav bhaji” she laughs.