Who Is Asif Basra? Bollywood Actor Who Died By Suicide In Dharamshala: Check His Major Performances

Known for his role as Puro N. Virajnarianan in the American comedy film “Outsourced”, the actor started his career of acting in 1991.

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Mumbai: Bollywood method actor Asif Basra was found dead in a private rented apartment in McLeod Ganj in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday. The 53-year-old actor was found hanging in the private complex. Known for his role of Puro N. Virajnarianan in the American comedy film “Outsourced”, the actor started his career of acting in 1991.  The “Kai Po Che” actor was born in the small central Indian town of Amravati in 1967. He first ventured onto the stage as a teenager during school theatre productions, and there began his passion for acting. In 1989, Asif moved to Mumbai and continued to act in college productions, regularly winning prizes for the characters he played. He graduated as a B.Sc of Physics, completed a computer course, and got himself a job. But theatre continued to draw him and every month he would spend all his salary on watching plays. In 1991, while Asif went to see Salim Ghouse’s production of Athol Fugard’s play Boesman and Lena, night after night for a week. Ghouse, well-known on the English stage, was intrigued and asked to meet him—a meeting that turned out to mark his entry into the Mumbai theatre scene. It was soon after this that Ghouse was staging a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet when one of his actors quit, and he asked Asif to step into the role of Horatio. Starting his career from theatres, Asif then moved over to the Bollywood silver screen with films like “Kai Po Che” in which he played the role of Ali’s father. The versatile actor has worked in 36 movies in Hindi, English, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujrati, and Himachali. In 2002, the actor got a major break to appear with veteran Hollywood actor Michael Caine and Michael Keaton in the crime-thriller “Quicksand”. Later had a small cameo in the movie “One Night with The King”. In another big break, he played the role of Puru in the American comedy movie “Outsourced” with Josh Hamilton. Asif also played the role of Imraan Hashmi’s father in the hit movie “Once Upon A Time In Mumbai”, Dr Alok Sen in “Krissh 3” with Hrithik Roshan. He played the role of “Raza Arif” in Kalakandi with Saif Ali Khan in the lead. The late actor worked in the first “crowdsourced” movie in Bollywood "The Tashkent File", as the news channel editor with Nasiruddin Shah and Mithun Chakraborty. Leaving no stone unturned in the career of acting, Basra also starred in the web series, “Paatal Lok” as Jai Malik which was released on Amazon Prime Videos, and on “Hostages” as Asghar Nabi, both the web series were released earlier this year.