“I wasn’t searching for acting then. I was just trying to survive,” Azher Qureshi tells The Better India.
For much of his life, survival was the only thing that guided his choices.
Azher says he was only 14 when he entered the same Madhya Pradesh Special Armed Forces department where his late father had served. Nearly a decade later, he walked away from the security of that government job with little idea of what would come next.
What followed was years of trying, failing, changing direction and starting again.
Today, audiences know him as Balmiki from Mirzapur Season 3. But getting there meant living through several versions of himself before acting finally found its place. Today, Azher looks back with us at the many versions of himself that came before Balmiki.
‘My protected world was over at 14’
Azher was just three years old when his father, who was a part of the Madhya Pradesh Special Armed Forces, passed away while on duty. His mother, Shahjahan Qureshi, a government nurse, suddenly found herself raising her son alone.
“It was a very difficult time,” she recalls. “I had to do everything myself. I would take Azher to the hospital with me because I couldn’t leave him alone.”
Growing up in a government colony near Bhopal, Azher heard stories about his father almost every day. Those stories quietly shaped the kind of person he wanted to become.
When he was 14, Azher says, he received a compassionate appointment in the same department. In a podcast interview, he has described an arrangement under which he would spend part of his time studying and the rest carrying out duties with the department.
At 14, Azher entered the Madhya Pradesh Special Armed Forces, following in the footsteps of his late father and leaving behind the protected world of childhood.
“I was excited because I had always wanted to serve,” he says. “But the excitement disappeared the moment my mother left me in the barracks.”
He still remembers watching her walk away. “I could see tears in her eyes. I realised very soon that now my protected world was over.”
Life inside the force was far removed from school.
Initially, Azher was asked to clean tables, serve tea and run errands in the office.
“It felt humiliating,” he admits. “I had never done anything like that before.”
But he stayed.
Over time, discipline replaced discomfort. One incident changed how others viewed him. While accompanying senior officers, Azher instinctively chased down a fleeing suspect before anyone else could react.
“I don’t know what came over me,” he laughs. “I just ran.”
The experience gave him something more valuable than recognition, it gave him confidence. “Whatever I learnt there made me stronger from inside.”
Looking back, Azher believes those years built qualities that would stay with him long after he left the uniform behind: resilience, observation and the ability to remain calm under pressure.
Leaving the uniform to build a different life
For nearly a decade, Azher served in the force. But as he grew older, his idea of the life he wanted began to change.
In a podcast interview, Azher has spoken about how his thinking had shifted over the years. He no longer felt like the person who had first entered the force and found himself increasingly drawn towards the arts. Eventually, he decided to take his life in a different direction.
That meant leaving the government job he had held since his teens, even though what would come after it was far from certain.
His mother supported him, even if she found the decision difficult to accept.
Years in the force taught Azher discipline, resilience and how to stay calm under pressure, qualities he says stayed with him long after he left the uniform.
“I knew it wasn’t easy,” she says. “But I also knew he had to find his own path.”
Leaving the force, however, did not immediately bring him the new beginning he had imagined. “What I had planned after leaving the force didn’t happen,” he says. “I was completely lost.”
Over the next several years, he moved from one kind of work to another, trying to build a life outside the uniform.
He started an event management company, managed bands, built a biker community, worked as a loan recovery agent for banks, became a DJ, opened a tattoo studio in Indore and even ventured into line production.
Some ventures succeeded briefly. Others failed almost as quickly as they began.
Before becoming an actor, Azher spent years as a casting coordinator, helping find actors for films including Raazi, RRR, Sui Dhaaga and Raid.
“There were times when people never paid me,” he says matter-of-factly. “There were businesses where I lost everything.”
Each time something fell through, Azher looked for another way forward.
His childhood friend, musician Gaurav Kadu, watched this constant reinvention unfold over the years.
“He kept trying different things,” Gaurav says. “But one thing never changed. Everybody respected him. No matter how long he worked somewhere, people always spoke highly of him.”
‘You have the personality, but not the acting’
Around 2006, someone suggested Azher should try acting.
Curious about where it might lead, he moved to Mumbai. Through a connection, he found himself auditioning at Ramanand Sagar’s office.
What followed was brutally honest feedback. “They told me, ‘You have the personality. You have the look. You have the voice. But you don’t know acting.'”
Azher returned to Bhopal and began spending time at Bharat Bhavan, the city’s well-known multi-arts centre, where theatre, music, literature and the visual arts come together.
From event management and DJing to running a tattoo studio and working in loan recovery, Azher tried several paths as he searched for a way forward.
There, he attended rehearsals, watched actors perform and listened during script readings.
“I wasn’t formally trained, but I have always been a great observer,” he says.
The Mumbai audition had told him what he lacked. Bharat Bhavan gave him a place to begin understanding the craft for himself.
Years of finding actors before becoming one
Over time, Azher found another way into the world of films, this time behind the camera. As a casting coordinator, he helped identify actors for films, collected portfolios, organised auditions and worked alongside casting teams on projects including Raazi, RRR, Sui Dhaaga and Raid.
There was an irony to the work. Azher spent years helping filmmakers find people for their characters while his own acting ambitions remained in the background.
At Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, Azher began observing theatre rehearsals, performances and script readings, gradually finding his own way into the world of acting.
Then, in 2022, an opportunity finally put him on the other side of the audition process when the team behind Netflix’s Kathal asked him to audition.
There was just one condition: his waist-length hair and long beard had to go. Azher was open to the change. “I said, ‘Change is always good. Let’s do it.'” He shaved everything off, unaware that the transformation would soon open another door.
After completing the shoot for Kathal, Azher visited a casting office simply to thank the team. A member of the Mirzapur casting team noticed his transformed look and asked him to audition.
Fifteen days later, the call came: he had been selected to play Balmiki.
‘Fame hasn’t changed him’
For Gaurav, watching his friend finally receive recognition felt less like luck and more like delayed justice. “I can guarantee that anyone who has watched Kathal or Mirzapur remembers his character,” he says.
More importantly, he says, fame hasn’t changed Azher.
Azher’s childhood friend Gaurav Kadu has watched him reinvent himself over the years, but says his warmth and respect never changed.
“The only thing that hasn’t changed is he still talks to me exactly like before,” he laughs. “He’s still the same person.”
His mother agrees. “I feel very proud,” she says. “But the best thing is that even today, he tells me everything before making any big decision.”
For all the changes his working life has gone through, the people who knew him before the cameras arrived still recognise the same Azher.
‘Life never goes exactly as planned’
Ask Azher what all those years of starting over have taught him, and he does not talk about finally becoming an actor. He talks about how little of life happens according to plan.
A transformation for Kathal led to an audition for Mirzapur, where Azher was eventually cast as Balmiki.
At 14, circumstances had already pushed him into a life far removed from the one most children his age knew. Years later, he chose to leave that life behind, only to find himself lost again. The jobs changed, plans fell apart, and for a long time, as he says, he was simply trying to survive.
Somewhere along the way, though, survival began making room for something else: the freedom to keep choosing who he wanted to become.
Today, audiences may know him as Balmiki from Mirzapur. Azher knows the many versions that came before him: the boy in the barracks, the man who walked away from certainty, the DJ, tattoo artist, casting coordinator, and the person who kept beginning again when one plan after another failed.
“We think things will happen according to our plans,” he says. “But life doesn’t work like that. What you expect may never happen. What is meant for you will.”
All images courtesy Azher Qurushi
