Parmeet Sethi – Biography, Wiki, Personal Details, Age, Height

Parmeet Sethi is an Indian actor, writer and director who is still best remembered as Kuljeet Singh in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), the film that marked his big-screen debut. He later wrote and directed the Yash Raj Films caper Badmaash Company (2010), and in October 2026 he joined Colors TV’s Pati Patni Aur Panga 2 alongside his wife, actress Archana Puran Singh.

Photo: The Times of India

Early Life

Little has been published about his childhood, and no reliable outlet has printed his year of birth, so this page does not show an age. What is on record is his birthday, 11 December: a Times of India story about her birthday post ran on that date in 2020. The same paper has described him as a Punjabi, and many of his best-known screen roles have been Punjabi characters. He is also a cousin of the television actress Niki Aneja Walia.

Career

Television beginnings

Before films, Sethi worked in television. He told IANS, in an interview carried by Business Standard, that viewers first knew him for clean-cut roles: “people saw me doing mostly positive roles in TV shows like ‘Kurukshetra’ and ‘Dastaan’.” That good-guy image very nearly cost him the part that made his name.

Kuljeet in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)

Aditya Chopra had already cast someone else. “Armaan Kohli had been signed up for Kuljeet Singh’s role,” Sethi recalled to Rediff in 2014. The first-time director wanted an actor with a tough, negative image, and Sethi had to plead for a screen test. He turned up to it dressed in character, won the role (“You are the Kuljeet I was looking for,” Chopra told him), and admits he waited until he reached his car before he screamed with joy. His first day of shooting nearly went badly wrong: he was meant to make a heroic entry on horseback, the animal bolted, and by the time it stopped he was clinging to its neck.

The role stuck. When the film turned 25, he told The Indian Express, that many fans in Punjab and north India see Kuljeet, not Raj, as the real hero, and he joked that “Kuljeet was the Kabir Singh of that time with all his macho elements.” He also remembered a night off during the Panvel climax schedule, when he, Archana, Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar stayed up playing Pictionary.

Films as an actor

DDLJ pushed him towards cinema. He played Captain Ranveer in Diljale (1996) with Ajay Devgn and Sonali Bendre, and took the role of Darshan Singh in the Punjabi drama Des Hoyaa Pardes (2004), which won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Punjabi. His other Hindi credits, as listed on Wikipedia, include Dhadkan (2000), Om Jai Jagadish (2002), Lakshya (2004, as Major Shahbaaz Humdani), Baabul (2006), Rustom (2016), Laila Majnu (2018) and, in 2020, Bhangra Paa Le.

After a short segment in Dus Kahaniyaan (2007) he stepped away from acting for about seven years. Zoya Akhtar brought him back as a villain in Dil Dhadakne Do (2015), where he played Lalit Sood, the Mumbai Mirror reported.

Writer and director

The break had a purpose. “Directing was new for me and I wanted to give my 100 per cent to it,” Sethi said. His first feature as director was Badmaash Company (2010), a Yash Raj Films heist comedy led by Shahid Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Meiyang Chang. He is credited as its director and screenwriter, and is said to have finished the whole script, dialogue included, in six days. The film earned him a Zee Cine Awards nomination for Best Debutante Director.

One line in that film came from home. Archana told SCREEN, as reported by The Indian Express in 2026, that the conditions Anushka’s character sets when Shahid proposes, including “no wet towels on the bed”, were the ones she had once given Sethi.

On television he moved behind the camera too. He co-directed the Sony TV sitcom Sumit Sambhal Lega with Deven Bhojani, India Today noted, and in 2017 directed Har Mard Ka Dard, a comedy with Faisal Rashid in the lead. He told IANS via Mid-Day that he liked its concept and enjoyed working in comedy. Earlier, he was the writer and producer of Samne Wali Khidki (2003), and in 2023 he directed Hack Crimes Online.

Later television and streaming

Sethi played Raj Malhotra in Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin (2003–2006) and turned up as Detective Omkar Nath in Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. In My Name Ijj Lakhan (2019) he and Archana played Shreyas Talpade’s parents, Dashrath and Pammi, Gulf News reported. Streaming brought a new run of work: he plays Naresh Chaddha in Neeraj Pandey’s Special Ops and its spin-off Special Ops 1.5: The Himmat Story, and appeared in Hundred (2020). “I may not have been the number one actor,” he told the Hindustan Times in 2020, adding that he had no regrets about trying acting, producing, writing and directing.

In 2021 he made his Punjabi television debut with Akhian Udeekdian on Zee Punjabi, a show shot in Chandigarh about a couple with a large age gap, according to The Times of India. In 2024 he was seen in The Magic of Shiri and made a guest appearance in Citadel: Honey Bunny.

Selected credits

Parmeet Sethi in Pati Patni Aur Panga 2 (2026)

Couples’ reality TV is not new territory for him. Sethi and Archana competed on the very first season of Nach Baliye in 2005, and a year later the pair hosted Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa together. Two decades on, they are one of seven real-life couples on season 2 of Colors’ Dhamaal With Pati Patni Aur Panga, according to the channel’s announcement carried by Adgully. The release said the two bring the understanding and humour of a long-standing relationship, and The Indian Express pointed out that they have been married for more than three decades.

The show premiered on 10 October 2026 and goes out at 9 PM on Saturdays and Sundays on Colors, with episodes also streaming on JioHotstar, hosted by Sonali Bendre and Munawar Faruqui. Bendre was his co-star in Diljale back in 1996. Other couples in the season, as listed by Siasat, include Divyanka Tripathi and Vivek Dahiya, Manoj Tiwari and Surbhi Tiwari, and Deepika Singh and Rohit Raj Goyal. The full line-up, couple by couple, is in our PPAP 2 contestants list.

Photo: India Today / Archana Puran Singh

Personal Life

He and actress Archana Puran Singh were married on 30 June 1992. On their 29th anniversary in 2021, India Today reported that she called him her best friend in an Instagram post marking the day. The couple have two sons, Aaryamann and Ayushmaan. In a 2022 interview summarised by Outlook, Archana said that, for all her famous laughter on TV, she is the one Sethi and the boys joke about at home. Sethi and Archana have also worked side by side many times, from dance shows in the 2000s to playing a married couple in My Name Ijj Lakhan.

Lesser-Known Facts

• Armaan Kohli was originally signed to play Kuljeet in DDLJ before Sethi talked Aditya Chopra into a screen test.
• His first shot in DDLJ ended with him hanging from the neck of a runaway horse.
• He wrote the full script of Badmaash Company, dialogue and all, in six days.
• A line from Archana’s reply to his marriage proposal ended up in that film’s proposal scene.
• Des Hoyaa Pardes, one of his Punjabi films, won a National Award.
• He stayed away from acting for roughly seven years to concentrate on writing and direction.
• He is a cousin of television actress Niki Aneja Walia.

FAQ About Parmeet Sethi

Related Biographies

• Archana Puran Singh Biography: his wife and partner on the show
• Rohit Raj Goyal Biography: another director competing with his wife on the show
• Kanchi Kaul Biography: on the show with husband Shabir Ahluwalia
• Arjun Bijlani Biography: competing on the same season with Neha Swami Bijlani
• Munawar Faruqui Biography: one of the season’s two hosts