Rajesh Koothrappali

Rajesh Ramayan "Raj" Koothrappali, Ph.D., is an Indian astrophysicist and Howard Wolowitz's best friend. He often hangs out at Leonard and Sheldon's apartment. Originally from New Dehli, Raj has a thick Indian accent and, yet, dislikes Indian food and culture. A running gag in the series, Raj often portrays himself as having come from humble origins and growing up in poverty in India, only for his friends to remind him that his father is a gynecologist, drives a Bentley, and that Raj himself had servants growing up. His principal characteristic is a case of selective mutism which does not allow him to talk to women (more specifically, attractive women (as stated by Howard during season one), but he has trouble even with feminine men) outside of his family and can only be suppressed when he is intoxicated by alcohol or experimental social anxiety medications.

Career
Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali is an astrophysicist and faculty at Caltech's Physics Department. For his discovery of a planetary object beyond the Kuiper Belt, 2008 NQ 17 (which he calls "Planet Bollywood"), he is included in |People People magazine's "30 (Visionaries) Under 30 (Years of Age) to Watch (as they challenge the preconceptions of their fields)", and thus receives a larger office for his work, granting him some form of celebrity status. He is also known for a publication on Kuiper Belt object size distribution, having run a simulation to correct for the observational efficiency. However, the work Raj performs at the university is repetitive enough that he could conceivably get replaced by a simple software program, and he fails to observe an exoplanet orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani with his much anticipated time using a ground-based telescope operating in Hawaii.

During The Pirate Solution, when Raj's research on the composition of trans-Neptunian objects ends, his working permit and visa are bound to become void. He seeks out a research position in stellar evolution with Professor Laughlin, but the job proposition fails as the research team includes an attractive female, Dr. Catherine Millstone, and Raj accidentally drinks a little too much and makes a sexually explicit comment. To avoid Raj's deportation to India, Sheldon asks him to work for him and, after several disputes, he agrees.

Wanting to be the male "Indira Gandhi of particle astrophysics," Raj researches dark matter. With Sheldon, he works on the string theory implications of gamma rays from dark matter annihilations and considers a method for optimizing a 500 GeV particle detector to look for the annihilation spectrum resulting from dark matter collisions in space. While Sheldon argues that slow-moving xenon doesn't produce ultra-violet light, Koothrappali posits that xenon can emit the tell-tale ultra-violet light from dark matter collisions, potentially negating a series of dark matter discoveries.

Characterization
Originally from India, Raj is slightly clueless about American culture, although he dislikes Indian food and his home country. Sheldon even disputes his knowlege of Indian customs and Hinduism, and reveals Raj's native language is English, while he seems to speak fluent Hindi. Raj stated that the reason he puts up with Sheldon is so that he could be reborn as a "well-hung billionaire with wings", according to his Hindu belief of being rewarded after reincarnation for suffering willingly. He is very sensitive to racist jokes, of which he is frequently a target. Yet, he is not above making derogatory remarks about India, or in his view "Gandhi-ville," stating it's hot and loud, and there's so many people. Raj only likes to say that he comes from India and had to overcome poverty and prejudice, albeit erroneous, to make himself appear interesting and mystical, especially when he is womanizing. More often than not, he likes to be associated with Slumdog Millionaire, except when Howard's mother says it. As Howard is non-kosher, Rajesh eats forbidden beef and believes some of the Hindu Code of Manu is crazy.

He has the recognized medical condition selective mutism, a social anxiety disorder which renders him unable to talk to women (with the exception of family members, who are seemingly unaware of his condition, and deaf women), although he quickly learns that he is able to surpass this problem by consuming alcohol or experimental medication. Consequently, the alcohol makes him obnoxious and the medications tend to have side effects, such as involuntary face and hand motions, loss of rationality, or jovially stripping naked in public without cognizance of its inappropriate nature. Raj is also able to speak in the presence of women when they are part of a crowd, if he thinks he has been drinking alcohol as under a placebo effect, or if he is unaware of their presence. Raj has noted, however, that this is an improvement over his previous affliction, in which the presence of women would cause him to lose bladder control before being remedied by meditation methods of ancient Indian gurus, and still exibits a "nervous bladder", in the sense that he gets an urge to relieve himself when under stress. Raj often whispers into Howard's ear, leaving him to relay what he said to everyone else. A recurring gag is for Raj to find himself left all alone when his friends make plans to go somewhere, his selective mutism forbidding him from speaking up to join in the activity.

He complains that he is so lonely, which leads to Raj hating himself and needing to be reassured of his value. Usually sweet, Raj sometimes smiles at his friends' misfortunes. Whenever Raj gets an idea or wants to say something slightly controversial in a conversation, he whispers it in Howard's ear whenever a woman is around. Howard never wants to say it out loud because he finds it stupid or offensive, but he ends up saying it anyway through scoffing at Raj. Rajesh often has married-couple-like arguments with Howard. He is noted for using slang ("fo' shizzle") and excessively using the word "dude".

He enjoys reading DC Comics, as with his friends, but dislikes Aquaman. Raj often obsesses over almost-insignificant details in fiction, such as how toilets work in Atlantis in Aquaman, the possible symbolism of ponytails in Avatar, whether Wolverine's prostate is made of adamantium, what zombies would eat if humanity was exterminated, how vampires would shave themselves if they can't see their reflections, etc. He has experienced gaming addiction and, like Wolowitz, he idolizes Stephen Hawking. Unlike the other guys, Raj has shown great interest in some non-geeky things like John Grisham novels and Archie comics, along with Zack. Raj has an interest in a number of books and TV shows which are generally perceived as feminine, and targeted towards the female demographic, such as Twilight, The Good Wife, Grey's Anatomy, Sex and the City, Eat Pray Love, and Bridget Jones's Diary. He is normally seen wearing a layered combination of a shirt, a sweater vest, and a purple windbreaker with khakis; he wore a red cap only in the Pilot.

Family
Raj always communicates with his parents, Dr. V.M. and Mrs. Koothrappali back in India via webcam. They constantly try to arrange dates for him. Raj's parents want their son to marry a woman of Indian descent, and give them grandchildren. Mrs. Koothrappali is especially worried that, despite Raj being old enough to marry, the closest they have to a daughter-in-law is the "Jewish boy," Howard. When they become meddling or judgmental, he often "brings his parents" into Leonard and Sheldon's apartment via his MacBook Pro, to seek his friends' support in the discussion. Like his sister Priya, whom he is very protective of, Raj calls his parents "mummy" and "daddy".

Despite Raj's claims that he grew up in poverty, his friends like to remind him that he comes from a wealthy background, his father is a gynecologist, drives a Bentley and has a house full of servants; two of them children. Raj later admits this, saying they are very wealthy. His parents say this too, believing they have nothing to complain about as they are rich in a poor country. In The Wiggly Finger Catalyst, it is revealed that his parents are actually billionaires, as Sheldon claims that Raj's family's estimated wealth is 'halfway between Bruce Wayne and Scrooge McDuck', a reference to Forbes: The Fictional 15.

Not much of Raj's family is explored so far. Raj as a matter of fact comes from a very large family; he comes from a family of six children. Raj is also mentioned to have an older brother in one episode, who, according to Raj, gave him his 'Patang' (fighter kite), but this was eventually surrendered to Sheldon in a game of kite fighting, thanks to Howard. However, his older brother appears to be one of Raj's three brothers, according to his statement in The Hot Troll Deviation. It was in this episode where Raj claimed that he has two sisters, one of them Priya.

Raj's cousin, Sanjay Koothrappali (or, as he says his friends know him as "Dave from AT&T Customer Service"), works in a Call Centre, and is briefly mentioned in various episodes. In The Guitarist Amplification, Raj tried to circumvent going to his wedding, but eventually accepted his parents' offer.

Another cousin, Venkatesh (who appeared in The Precious Fragmentation), works as a lawyer in Mumbai. Albeit, he has poor negotiation skills, who even admits that he is useless.

In The Alien Parasite Hypothesis, Raj mentions that Type 2 diabetes runs in his family but he has no symptoms so far.

Leonard Hofstadter


Leonard and Raj meet at the University in The Staircase Implementation. Made clear in The Jerusalem Duality, both Raj and Howard like Leonard. Though, Raj takes delight in Leonard's problems with Penny and becomes somewhat adversarial with him when he dates his sister, Priya. Raj feels jealous when Leonard and Howard use his idea for fun and exclude him. Koothrappali has said that Leonard only hangs out with him if he has no other options, and has missed him. When Sheldon and Penny were indisposed, Leonard took the very appreciative Raj with him to Switzerland for a visit to the Large Hadron Collider. They normally try to help each other.

Sheldon Cooper


When they first meet in The Staircase Implementation, Raj tells Sheldon that the group is trying to get away from him. Raj has an admirable toleration towards Sheldon's insufferable attitude, possibly because of religious reasons. Albeit, Sheldon once tried to cut off Raj from his circle of friends to make room for Barry Kripke and because Raj got one answer for his questionnaire wrong. Raj was terrified at the prospect of losing Sheldon as a friend, and later worries whether he is merely the "treasured acquaintance." Sheldon hates him talking in his ear, although he does appreciate Raj's words. Whenever Raj is upset, Sheldon brings him a hot beverage to console him, as is common in the Cooper household. In The Roommate Transmogrification, Raj proves to be a better roommate to Sheldon than Leonard was, as he goes out of his way to impress him. Considering Raj a good friend, Sheldon enjoys the ethnic diversity he brings about in the group and the fact that he too likes monkeys and trains. In the episode The Pirate Solution, when Raj's research hits a dead end, Sheldon offers Raj a chance to work for him, which he later accepts. Since then, Raj has been working for Sheldon, and they occasionally clash.



Howard Wolowitz
Howard is Raj's best friend, since the first season they have always been very close. Raj usually comes to Howard's house for holidays such as Thanksgiving, and has sleepovers there too. He knows all of Howard's jokes and finds humor in mimicking Mrs. Wolowitz. Rajesh is sometimes sensitive to Howard's cultural stereotyping as well as his perceived inability to recognize when he is upset. They are practically inseparable, maintaining certain weekly routines together and serving as wingmen. Although Raj and Howard are heterosexual, their relationship and interaction sometimes resembles that of a couple, which resulted in a misunderstanding by Leonard's Mother, who called their relationship as an "ersatz homosexual marriage". Despite the denials, Raj amusingly still takes up a cliché "female" role in many arguments with Howard, accusing him repeatedly of running off for every slightly better looking person.

Penny
Penny is the closest female friend that Raj has, though he is only able to talk to her when he is drunk. Penny sometimes tries to make Raj speak, but mostly feels sorry for him (calling him a strange little man and even kissing him on the cheek), while Raj believes her to be so considerate. There are times where his relationship with Penny becomes less than platonic - particularly in the episode The Griffin Equivalency where, misinterpreting her going with him to an award ceremony as an act of romance rather than friendship, he introduced Penny to his parents as his new "squeeze" while he was drunk. He tried to apologize by note but Penny forced him to say the apology while sober. In the last episode of the season 4 finale, Raj and Penny hooked up while they were drunk in Leonard's bedroom, and when they were leaving the bedroom, ran into Howard, Leonard and Sheldon. It started with Penny saying, had they not been friends, she'd be on him like the speed of light squared on matter to make energy. Raj wasn't able to talk to Penny even after they slept together. In the season 5 premiere, Raj reveals that they didn't have sex after all, as he had a "premature" start.

Romantic
Unlike the other main characters, Raj's romantic relationships have never been very serious or lasting, mostly due to his inability to speak to women. He has had a number of one-night-stands and brief dates. Impressively though, Raj was the first one amongst the four to get laid within the series in The Middle Earth Paradigm, at Penny's Halloween party. He is much more successful in casual sex than the more sexually aggressive Howard, and, amongst the guys, has great appeal to extremely attractive women. He has a big crush on Howard's fiancee, Bernadette Rostenkowski, who has said how wonderful a man he is and has called him a "cutie pie", much like Penny.

Lalita Gupta (Sarayu Rao)
One of Raj's female childhood acquaintances, Lalita Gupta used to be fat. She also kicked him in the samosas (testicles) and called him untouchable. In spite of this, Raj's parents thought it would be a good idea to set them up on a date. Raj discovered that alcohol is able to help him suppress his selective mutism but being drunk made him obnoxious. As a result: he generally weirded out Lalita. Sheldon, because of Lalita's resemblance to a beloved childhood fairy tale character, unintentionally "stole" Lalita from Raj.

Missy Cooper (Courtney Henggeler)
In The Pork Chop Indeterminacy, Sheldon's fraternal twin sister, Missy, came to Pasadena. Raj, at the time was using an experimental drug to help with his selective mutism. Leonard, Howard and Raj were all attracted to her and after hitting on her too much (causing her to hide at Penny's for the night) and fighting over the "right" to ask her out, they decide to just ask her out individually. After both Leonard and Howard's attempts failed, Raj got his turn. Inconveniently, as he waited for her at Penny's door, the drugs began wearing off and despite Missy's implied interest in Raj, (saying "Hi cutie pie, I was hoping you'd show up") Raj was unable to ask her out and walked away.

Summer Glau
In The Terminator Decoupling, when Sheldon, Leonard, Howard, and Raj were on a train to San Francisco, the latter three tried talking to sci-fi actress Summer Glau. After drinking what he thought was a beer, Raj talked to Summer, being flirty and smooth and she took a liking to him. He said Slumdog Millionaire was based off of his life story and revealed his knowledge of astronomy. When Howard pointed out that his beer was non-alcoholic, Raj stopped in the middle of his conversation, was embarrassed and rushed away from Summer without saying any more.

Abby (Danica McKellar)
In the episode The Psychic Vortex, Leonard and Howard went on a double date with their respective girlfriends, leaving a lonely Raj with only an indifferent Sheldon. Raj insists on Sheldon helping him score with a girl at a University Mixer. After presenting Sheldon with a "Limited Edition Green Lantern Lantern" and a "Incredible Hulk Hands signed by Stan Lee" on two separate occasions, Sheldon agreed to be Raj's wingman, helping him score with Abby. It is not known what happened to her after that episode.

Dr. Elizabeth Plimpton (Judy Greer)
In The Plimpton Stimulation, Dr. Plimpton was welcomed as a guest of Sheldon's for a few days while considering taking a position at the University. Incredibly promiscuous, she shows interest in Raj immediately after meeting him despite having slept with Leonard the previous night and sitting next to him at the time. That evening, Raj was hosting Dr. Plimpton but when Leonard and Howard show up, she immediately suggests they join Raj and her. Raj directs his friends so they can leave and spends the night with Dr. Plimpton.

Emily (Katie Leclerc)
In The Wiggly Finger Catalyst, Penny thought she found the perfect match for Raj by hooking him up with a woman who is deaf, Emily. Raj made very obnoxious remarks during their first date, but translator Howard would sign something else to Emily as to make him not look like a jerk. However, it turns out she only liked Raj for his money and left him when she found out his parents would cut his financial ties if they continued to see each other.

Trivia

 * He is 30 years old. He was born on October 6, 1981.
 * He has a Ph.D. in astrophysics.
 * He lives in apartment 3D, which he calls his "Raj Mahal".
 * Raj is not at all serious about his Hindu faith, and eats beef, which is not allowed.
 * Raj, much like Howard, despises much of Sheldon's antics, and the two managed to get Sheldon on a date with Amy Farrah Fowler on a dating website in The Lunar Excitation, much to Sheldon's dismay.
 * Raj's case of selective mutism was evident in the Pilot episode.
 * "Koothrappali" is a surname from southern India; however Raj claims that he is from New Delhi, suggesting that his family moved from their native area.
 * Whenever Raj gets an idea or wants to say something slightly controversial in a conversation, he whispers it in Wolowitz's ear whenever a woman is around. Wolowitz never wants to say it out loud because he finds it stupid or offensive, but he ends up saying it anyway through scoffing Raj. Sheldon hates him talking in his ear altogether, although he does appreciate Raj's words.
 * He regularly communicates with his parents (V. M. Koothrappali and Mrs. Koothrappali) back in India via webcam. When they become meddling or judgmental, he often "brings his parents" into Leonard and Sheldon's apartment via his MacBook Pro, to seek his friends' support in the discussion.
 * His father is a gynecologist and drives a Bentley.
 * Rajesh often has married-couple-like arguments with Wolowitz and, when nervous, often whispers into his ear leaving him to translate to everyone else.
 * As with Wolowitz, the others in his circle of friends often refer to him by his surname. He frequently wears a purple jacket and a sweater vest.
 * Rajesh performs vocals when playing Rock Band (albeit extremely badly), which could possibly be a joke because he suffers from selective mutism. Though in a Season 2 promotional photo, he is playing with a guitar controller, so he is either playing the bass or the lead.
 * He despises Guitar Hero because he feels it is lame, though he still plays it.
 * Raj is considered the attractive one of the group because women find him foreign and exotic, plus his selective mutism makes him a very 'good listener'.
 * Works with/for Sheldon.
 * Featured in People Magazine (30 Under 30 to Watch!)
 * He has MySpace.
 * He has problems talking to women unless he is drunk. In The Porkchop Indeterminacy, he tried an experimental medication for his problem, but stopped taking it because of the side effects. In The Wildebeest Implementation, he tried another medication he got from a friend at Caltech's school of pharmacology, but gave up on it too because it removed his inhibitions to the point that he stripped naked in the middle of a coffee shop.
 * Unlike the other guys, Raj has shown great interest in some non-geeky and sometimes feminine things, such as Grey's Anatomy, The Good Wife, Sex and the City, Eat Pray Love, Bridget Jones' Diary and John Grisham novels. He also likes Archie comics along with Zack and likes Twilight.
 * Raj is addicted to internet pornography.
 * He dislikes Aquaman.
 * Raj often obsesses over almost-insignificant details in fiction, such as how toilets in Atlantis in Aquaman work, the possible symbolism of ponytails in Avatar, whether Wolverine's prostate is made of adamantium, what zombies would eat if humanity was exterminated, how vampires would shave themselves if they can't see their reflections, etc.
 * English is his native language, though he speaks very fluent Hindi.
 * Raj doesn't need to be drunk to talk to woman, as long as he thinks he is drunk it is sufficient (Placebo Effect) as shown in "The Terminator Decoupling."
 * Raj takes pilates classes and claims to, as a result, have very well-trained abs.
 * In one scene when parents arranged a blind date he refused and Sheldon explains that Indian arranged marriages result in a peaceful bond then Raj says "I know my own culture" leaving Sheldon quite silenced.
 * In one episode Sheldon will join Penny in jogging and Howard says to Penny Raj always watches you from his car with binoculars.
 * Like the common nerd, Raj was bullied as a child, although he was unique as he once got a penis drawn on his forehead on his first day of cricket camp, with the testicles drawn around the eyes. One person who bullied him was Lalita Gupta, who used to kick him in the nuts and call him untouchable. They dated as adults, where a drunk Raj insults her by saying she used to be so, so fat as a child.
 * His favorite number is 5,318,008. The reason for that is that when entered in a calculator, turning the calculator upside-down will read "Boobies".
 * Raj is terrified of bugs. As he is also afraid of women, Sheldon jokes that Ladybugs must render him cationic.
 * He was mad when Leonard and Priya decided to date again which means he is careful towards his baby sister.
 * In The Roommate Transmogrification, Raj had a drunken sexual encounter with Penny, which they both apparently regretted instantly.
 * It is revealed in two episodes during season 4 that Raj has a huge crush on Bernadette.
 * He is the only character whose date and year birth are known.
 * He is afraid of spiders, which is revealed in The Alien Parasite Hypothesis.