Nitish started his arts career with his training in Marathi theatre as a Director, under many stalwarts like Late Sudha Karmarkar, Dr. Kashinath Ghanekar & Prabhakar Panshikar. He then moved on to Professional Marathi theatre with Sai Paranjapye & later shifted to Hindi theatre on a sound advise from his friend Ravi Baswani. Ravi was, in fact, instrumental in getting Nitish from Marathi to nation-wide Hindi arena & Nitish has always acknowledged Ravi's contribution to his life. He worked with a thespian of Hindi theatre named Dinesh Thakur & performed in many of his plays till 1987. He later done a Hindi mythological play titled 'Chakravyuh', in which he reappears as Lord Krishna, the role he has mastered in the old Mahabharat. Though the play depicts the story of Abhimanyu's martyrdom, it brings out various issues out of the same story which are relevant to today's times. Chakravyuh is one of the most successful plays of Hindi Theatre in 2015 and has already done around 75 shows across India, including some prestigious theatre festivals like the Kala Ghoda Festival, Mumbai. Nitish also performed in a musical theatre production titled 'Moti Roti Patli Chunni' (1993), with a renowned theatre in London (UK) named 'Theatre Royal Stratford East'. This play won the 'London Time Out Dance & Performance Award' & toured across Britain & Canada.
In 1991, Nitish Bharadwaj married Monisha Patil, daughter of Vimla Patil, then Editor of Femina. They have two children and divorced in 2005. Monisha now lives in London with their children. Bharadwaj married Smita Gate, an IAS officer (1992 batch) from Madhya Pradesh cadre, in 2009.
Nitish also did 2 radio shows for BBC Radio 4 (London, UK), namely 'Bhagvad Geeta' & 'Ramayan'. He was nominated for 'Sony Radio award' for Ramayan in UK in 1995.
Bharadwaj contested the parliamentary elections from Jamshedpur and Rajgarh (in Madhya Pradesh) as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and was elected to Lok Sabha as a Member of Parliament from Jamshedpur in 1996, by defeating veteran Inder Singh Namdhari. He lost to Laxman Singh (brother of then chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijaya Singh) in the 1999 Lok Sabha elections. He also worked in BJP's organisational unit of Madhya Pradesh & was also its Spokesperson for a while, till he voluntarily retired from active politics.
