As well as his successful comedy career, Ranganathan, 47, is also well-known for various presenting roles both on TV and radio.
He is host of BBC game show The Weakest Link and also starred in Bafta Award-winning TV series Rob And Romesh Vs, alongside fellow comedian Rob Beckett.
Ranganathan has also featured in several BBC documentary series – The Misadventures Of Romesh Ranganathan (BBC Two) and Asian Provocateur (BBC Three).
In 2024, he took over Claudia Winkleman’s Saturday morning slot on BBC Radio 2 and he also presents Romesh Ranganathan: For The Love Of Hip Hop on the same station.
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Romesh Ranganathan to take a “step back” from career
However, Ranganathan, who hails from Crawley, has now revealed he will be “taking a step back” from his career, but emphasised he was not retiring.
Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Ranganathan said: “I know that people sort of say I’m busy and I’m always like, trying to work and stuff.
“There is no strategy. There’s no game plan. I have no end game.
“There’s no vision board or anything like that. (I’m) just doing whatever feels good.”
He added: “I do feel like I’m sort of settling into winding things up, like not winding things up, but I’m taking a step back.
“I want to be at home a bit more. And by the way, this is not an announcement of retirement, but I do feel like, relatively recently, this is quite fortuitous that we’re talking about this at the time that we are, because I have just hit this period of thinking I am probably going to just be a bit more measured in what I do going forward.
“I think I might take a bigger break between bits. I’ve told you, I’ve not hit the thing yet, maybe this next thing could be it, but it’s not going to be it if I don’t go off and just live life.”
Romesh Ranganathan reflects on “stressful” teaching career before taking up comedy
Ranganathan also reflected on the time he spent as a maths teacher, before his current career, and said it was more stressful than working in comedy.
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He said: “There wasn’t a single day of that job that I didn’t feel completely fulfilled.
“I felt very stressed. It’s the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life actually.
“There’s not been a single day of my comedy career that’s even come close to the stress that I felt as a teacher. I cannot speak highly enough of teachers and teaching and how I loved that job.”
