Who is Raj Koothrappali in The Big Bang Theory?

Show

The Big Bang Theory

Played by

Kunal Nayyar

First episode

“Pilot”Season 1, Episode 1, aired September 24, 2007

Role

Main cast

Network

CBS

Occupation

Astrophysicist at Caltech

Show run

2007 to 2019

Also known as

Rajesh Koothrappali, Rajesh Ramayan Koothrappali, Raj, Dr. Koothrappali

Raj Koothrappali is a Caltech astrophysicist from a wealthy family in New Delhi and Howard's inseparable best friend. Played by Kunal Nayyar, he is the group's hopeless romantic, famous for being unable to talk to women for much of the show's run.

On The Big Bang Theory, Raj Koothrappali's story runs through Howard Wolowitz (Best Friend), Bernadette Rostenkowski (Friend), Leonard Hofstadter (Friend), Sheldon Cooper (Friend), Penny (Friend), and Stuart Bloom (Friend).

Who is Raj Koothrappali?

Rajesh Koothrappali, known to everyone as Raj, is a particle astrophysicist at Caltech who grew up in New Delhi, India. He comes from a very wealthy family, and his parents, Dr. V.M. Koothrappali and his wife, check in over video chat and push him toward marriage. He is part of the core friend group from the pilot, where he is too frozen to say a word to Penny.

Raj is the most openly sentimental of the guys. He loves romantic comedies, fancy food, fashion, and gossip, and he often fills a stereotypically feminine role in the group, which the show plays for affectionate laughs. His bromance with Howard is one of the show's longest-running relationships.

Personality and comedy

For the first six seasons, Raj has selective mutism around women outside his family. He can only speak to them after drinking alcohol, or in one episode after trying an experimental anxiety drug, which leads to plenty of whispered conversations with Howard and some very bold drunken moments. Without a drink, he simply goes silent.

Once he finally overcomes it, the joke flips: Raj will not stop talking. He also gets a tiny Yorkshire terrier named Cinnamon from Howard and Bernadette, whom he dotes on like a child, and he stays the friend most eager for love, marriage, and a big romantic gesture.

Key storylines

In the season six finale, after his anxious girlfriend Lucy breaks up with him by text, Raj realizes he has been talking to Penny without a drink and that his mutism is gone. He goes on to date Emily, a dermatologist with a taste for the macabre, in a relationship that runs from season seven into season nine before they split. In season eleven he lands a job at the planetarium, a dream that fits his love of the stars.

In the final season, Raj asks his father to arrange a marriage, and he gets engaged to Anu, a confident hotel concierge. The two struggle to really know each other, call off the wedding, and when Anu accepts a job in London and asks him to move with her, Raj ultimately stays in Pasadena with his friends. In the finale he travels to Stockholm for Sheldon and Amy's Nobel ceremony, bringing Sarah Michelle Gellar as his plus-one.

Behind the scenes

Raj and Howard were not in the original, unaired pilot, which featured only Leonard, Sheldon, and an early version of the Penny character. When test audiences liked the two physicists, the producers added two more friends. Raj was first written as Dave, an American with Indian parents, and was reworked into a character from New Delhi when Kunal Nayyar, who was born in London and raised in New Delhi, won the role. Co-creator Bill Prady has said Raj's shyness around women was inspired by a former co-worker.

Nayyar played Raj for all 12 seasons. Raj is also Halley Wolowitz's godfather, a role Howard and Bernadette give him to lift his spirits on the night she is born, a sweet reflection of how central he is to the group's found family.

Raj Koothrappali: frequently asked questions

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