Rajesh Kumar Reveals How Sadhguru Inspired His Farming Journey That Left Him ₹2 Crore in Debt: ‘I Won’t Call It Failure’

THE CELEBRITY HOUR

Rajesh Kumar’s decision to move away from regular television work and immerse himself in farming became one of the most difficult chapters of his life, eventually leaving the Sarabhai vs Sarabhai actor with debts that he has said reached roughly ₹2 crore.

But one part of the story needs more careful framing than some recent headlines suggest.

Rajesh has spoken about being influenced by Sadhguru, participating in Isha Foundation events and being deeply affected by a message he heard during the Rally for Rivers campaign. However, the available interviews reviewed by The Celebrity Hour do not establish that Sadhguru personally told Rajesh to quit acting and become a farmer.

In fact, Rajesh himself said in a 2020 interview that reports suggesting he had completely given up acting were inaccurate. “That didn’t mean that I had given up acting,” he told The Times of India while discussing his farming work in Bihar.

The more accurate story is also the more interesting one: a successful television actor, influenced by a larger conversation around agriculture and the environment, decided to experience farming firsthand and discovered just how unforgiving the economics of agriculture could be.

What Rajesh Kumar Says Sadhguru’s Message Changed for Him

In a recent conversation cited by The Times of India, Rajesh recalled initially being unconvinced by Sadhguru before gradually becoming associated with his spiritual teachings and hosting events connected with the Isha Foundation.

He particularly remembered a message from Sadhguru during the Rally for Rivers campaign about young people devoting themselves to improving agriculture without immediately asking what they would personally gain from it.

Rajesh said that message stayed with him when he returned to his village and contributed to a larger realisation: rather than advising farmers from a distance about pesticides and agricultural practices, he wanted to understand their problems by becoming involved himself.

He subsequently experimented with horticulture and farming in Bihar.

Importantly, that is different from saying Sadhguru specifically advised Rajesh to leave acting and take up agriculture. The material currently available supports influence and inspiration, not a documented one-to-one instruction.

Rajesh Had Already Explained Why He Turned to Farming

Rajesh has been discussing the motivation behind that decision for years.

In a 2019 TEDx talk at IIM Shillong, he spoke publicly about moving from entertainment towards agriculture and argued that farming should not automatically be associated with poverty or lack of opportunity. The official TEDx description says his talk focused on what inspired him to pursue organic farming and on changing perceptions surrounding the profession.

In another detailed interview published by The Indian Express in February 2024, Rajesh placed the beginning of his farming experiment in 2017, when his television career was going well.

He said he had begun questioning what he was contributing beyond his acting career and what he would leave behind for the next generation. That thinking eventually took him back to Bihar, where he began cultivating crops.

The project was therefore not presented by Rajesh as a quick commercial side business. He has repeatedly described it in terms of social purpose, agriculture and his desire to understand the realities faced by farmers.

Flood, Covid and a Failed Borewell Changed Everything

The realities arrived quickly.

Rajesh has recalled his initial plantation being destroyed when flooding hit the area after decades without such an event. He tried again, reportedly planting thousands of trees, but the Covid-19 pandemic created another major disruption.

According to his latest account, another attempt encountered an equally fundamental problem: water.

Rajesh said he spent what resources he had on drilling a borewell to a depth of around 500 feet, only to find no water.

These setbacks were not simply disappointing harvests. They meant repeated capital expenditure without the income needed to offset the losses.

By 2024, Rajesh was openly describing himself as having become bankrupt during the farming period.

Speaking about those years, he told The Indian Express that his lack of farming experience contributed to major losses, while debt and the pandemic compounded the pressure.

He Even Sold Vegetables Outside His Son’s School

One detail from Rajesh’s account has become symbolic of how far his circumstances changed.

After moving into vegetable cultivation, he has said that he eventually set up a table outside his son’s school to sell produce.

At the same time, his finances were deteriorating.

In an account published in October 2024, Rajesh said EMIs had begun bouncing and credit-card recovery representatives were visiting his home. He later returned to acting at a point when his financial situation had become extremely strained.

He has also recalled travelling to the UK for the shoot of Binny And Family while having only about ₹2,500 left in his bank account.

Those accounts offer far more context than the simplified idea of an actor trying farming and immediately losing ₹2 crore.

The debt accumulated across a prolonged period involving crop losses, reinvestment, disrupted farming operations and an absence of dependable income.

How Large Was Rajesh Kumar’s Debt?

Rajesh has said his liabilities reached approximately ₹2 crore.

By July 2025, after appearing as the father of Aneet Padda’s character in Mohit Suri’s Saiyaara, he said he still had a portion of those debts left to clear.

The situation has since improved considerably.

In an interview with Bollywood Bubble reported in April 2026, Rajesh said only about 10-15% of the original debt remained. Multiple outlets calculated or described the outstanding amount as roughly ₹20 lakh.

He told the publication that he had largely escaped the financial cycle that had consumed him and was considering another agriculture-related venture.

That update substantially changes the present-day context of the story: the ₹2 crore figure describes the peak of his financial crisis, not his reported current debt burden.

His Sisters Have Now Joined the Agriculture Venture

The farming chapter has also taken another unexpected turn.

Rajesh revealed in the same 2026 interview that his sisters, who had spent more than two decades living abroad in the United States and Finland, decided to leave their jobs and become involved in the agricultural work in Bihar.

According to Rajesh, his elder sister returned around his 50th birthday and told him to concentrate on acting while she handled farming operations. His younger sister subsequently decided to join as well.

That means Rajesh has not abandoned agriculture even after the severe financial losses.

Instead, his role appears to be evolving as his acting career again takes greater priority.

Farming Did Not Mean Rajesh Permanently Quit Acting

This is another distinction worth preserving.

Rajesh stepped back from the intensity of his television career, but describing him as having permanently “quit acting” in 2017 oversimplifies his own account.

By May 2020, he was already publicly correcting that interpretation.

Speaking to The Times of India, Rajesh said he enjoyed farming but maintained that acting remained his first love. At that time, he had appeared in Maharaj Ki Jai Ho! and said he continued to look for appropriate acting opportunities.

His subsequent credits reinforced that point.

After his difficult farming period, Rajesh appeared in projects including Kota Factory, Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya, Rautu Ka Raaz, Binny And Family and Saiyaara. His role in Saiyaara introduced him to another large audience decades after Rosesh Sarabhai became his most recognisable television character.

Why Rajesh Refuses to Call the Farming Experiment a Failure

Perhaps the most revealing part of Rajesh’s recent account is how he describes what happened.

Financially, his first farming attempts were clearly damaging. Rajesh himself has acknowledged suffering enormous losses.

Yet he says he does not want to place the experience neatly under the label of “success” or “failure.”

In discussing Sadhguru’s influence, Rajesh explained that the farming years forced him to learn about soil, water, agriculture and the difficulties faced by farmers in a way he could never have understood from outside the profession.

He has also credited spirituality with helping him cope emotionally while projects repeatedly failed to work as planned.

That is Rajesh’s personal interpretation of the experience, rather than evidence that the financial losses themselves were somehow beneficial. But it explains why he continues to speak about farming with conviction despite the debt it created.

The Celebrity Hour Take

Rajesh Kumar’s story becomes more meaningful once the click-friendly version “Sadhguru told actor to farm, actor lost ₹2 crore” is removed.

His documented accounts describe something more complex.

Sadhguru’s teachings and the Rally for Rivers campaign appear to have influenced Rajesh’s thinking, but his decision to become directly involved in agriculture was his own response to those ideas. There is no reliable evidence reviewed for this article showing that Sadhguru personally instructed him to abandon acting.

Likewise, the ₹2 crore debt deserves its present-day context. Rajesh says he has already repaid the vast majority of it, while agriculture remains part of his life and his sisters are now participating in the venture.

The real value of the story lies in that contradiction: an experiment that damaged him financially also gave him enough conviction about farming that, nearly a decade after he began, he has not entirely walked away from it.

Sources & Verification

This report was prepared by comparing Rajesh Kumar’s accounts across several years rather than relying solely on the latest retelling of his farming story. The Celebrity Hour reviewed his 2019 TEDx talk, interviews from 2020 onward about whether he had actually quit acting, his accounts of the agricultural losses and debt, and his April 2026 update on how much of the ₹2 crore liability remained.

The available evidence supports saying that Sadhguru and the Rally for Rivers campaign influenced Rajesh’s decision-making. It does not establish that Sadhguru personally instructed Rajesh to quit acting and become a farmer. The article therefore does not present that stronger claim as fact.