Remembering Priya Marathe: A Mumbai Girl Who Became a TV Household Name

If you grew up watching Indian soaps anytime in the last twenty years, chances are you’ve seen Priya Marathe on your screen without even realizing how much ground she’d covered. Marathi shows, Hindi shows, even a stint doing comedy on live TV — she did it all, and did it quietly, without ever chasing the spotlight in the way some of her co-stars did.

Growing Up in Mumbai

Priya was born on 23 April 1987, right there in Mumbai, and she never really left the city — school, career, home, all of it stayed rooted in the same place. Her first real break came with a Marathi serial called Ya Sukhanoya, though it was Char Divas Sasuche that actually got people talking about her.

Two Industries, One Career

Here’s the thing about Priya Marathe: most actors pick a lane, Hindi or regional, and stay there. She didn’t. She’d go from a Marathi set one year to a big Hindi production the next, and audiences on both sides accepted her without question. Pavitra Rishta is probably what most people remember her for — she played Varsha Satish alongside Sushant Singh Rajput, and that role is what really put her name on the map nationally. A few years later, in 2017, she stepped into Saath Nibhaana Saathiya as Bhavani Rathod, and before that she’d already done Vidya Bali in Kasamh Se for Balaji Telefilms.

She wasn’t only about serious, dramatic roles either. She once competed in the first season of Comedy Circus, which says something about how comfortable she was trying new things in front of a camera and a live crowd.

Her résumé is honestly longer than most people realize. Bade Acche Lagte Hain, Tu Tithe Me, Bhaage Re Mann, Jayastute, Uttaran, and the period drama Bharat Ka Veer Putra – Maharana Pratap all had her in the cast at some point. She even made it to the big screen with Humne Jeena Seekh Liya back in 2008, and later with the Marathi film Ti Ani Itar.

Away From the Cameras

Priya wasn’t someone who lived her personal life in public. She married actor Shantanu Moghe in April 2012, and beyond the wedding itself, the couple mostly kept things private, letting their careers do the talking instead of interviews or social media drama.

One of the last things she shared online, back in August 2024, was a photo from a trip to Jaipur’s Amer Fort. She wrote about how struck she was by the sheer scale of the place and its detailing — a small, ordinary post, but one that fans have gone back to again and again since.

Her Passing, and What’s Left Behind in 2026

Priya Marathe died on 31 August 2025 at her home in Mira Road, Mumbai, after fighting cancer for over a year. She was just 38. The news hit the television industry hard — the kind of loss that made people from both the Marathi and Hindi circuits speak up about her, not out of obligation, but because she’d genuinely touched their lives at some point.

Now, in 2026, people are still watching her old shows, still talking about her characters, and still calling her one of the more underrated talents Indian TV has had. That’s probably the truest measure of how good she actually was.