Mahesh is an Indian actor in Malayalam films and television serials. He started his movie career as a hero and later shifted his focus to negative roles and then supporting roles in Television series.
He started his career as an assistant director for the director J. Sasikumar in the early 1980s. Then he worked as an associate director for 16 Malayalam movies with different leading directors. Later he turned to the acting career. He first acted in the movie Mudra, directed by Sibi Malayil in 1989 at the age of 23. He went on to act in classic movies like Mrugaya, Sadayam Vyooham, etc. He took a break in the late 1999s and went to United States and settled there. He made a comeback in 2006 and directed a Malayalam movie in 2008; Calendar, with Prithviraj Sukumaran, Zarina Wahab and Navya Nair in the lead. He did story, screenplay and dialogue for the Malayalam movie Ashwaroodan. Currently he is active in direction for Malayalam films.
He was born to P. K. Padmanabhan Nair and Padmakumari in Tanzania, though he originally hails from Thiruvananthapuram. His father was working for the British government in Tanganyika, then he moved back to India in the early 1970s. They settled down in Alappuzha near to Udaya Studio, which attracted him to the film industry. He had his primary education from St. Joseph's Higher Secondary School, Pulinkunnoo and graduation in Bcom from S.D.(Sanatana Dharma College), Alappuzha. His father died when he was eleven years old.
He is married to Hema. They have two daughters, Malavika and Meghna. He currently resides at Tripunithura. His elder daughter Malavika married Ajay Nair, a senior sub-editor for Sky news, in September 2021. They are settled in UK.