Raj Kaushal is no more

Mandira Bedi’s husband, filmmaker Raj Kaushal passed away on Wednesday, June 30, at around 4.30 am after suffering a sudden heart attack. He was 49 and is survived by wife Mandira and two children – Veer and Tara. Raj, who started off as a copywriter, had assisted directors Mukul S Anand and Subhash Ghai during the early years of his career. In 1998, he went on to set up his own production house called Fuel and had since directed over 400 commercials for leading corporate brands.

He had then ventured into Bollywood and directed three films — Shaadi Ka Laddoo, Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi and Anthony Kaun Hai. As a producer, he was known for My Brother Nikhil, amongst other projects. Raj’s demise was confirmed by Director Onir on Twitter, “Gone too soon. We lost filmmaker and producer @rajkaushal1 this morning. Very sad. He was one of the producers of my first film #MyBrotherNikhil. One of those few who believed in our vision and supported us. Prayers for his soul.”

As soon as the news broke, Mandira’s friends, colleagues and family members rushed to pay their last respects to the late filmmaker. These included Ronit Roy, Sameer Soni, Apurva Agnihotri, Huma Qureshi, Ashish Chowdhry, among others.

Breaking stereotypes, Mandira Bedi was seen carrying her husband’s bier at the funeral ceremony, which is traditionally an act performed by male family members. Meanwhile, many celebs including Anupam Kher, Tisca Chopra, Arshad Warsi, Ranvir Shorey, Lara Dutta, Kriti Kharbanda and others, took to Twitter to pay their tributes to Raj.