B-Town mourns the loss of Satish Kaushik

Veteran Bollywood actor-writer-director Satish Kaushik, remembered as Calendar in the film ‘Mr. India’, passed away at 67 on March 8. His friend and another legendary actor, Anupam Kher, shared the news in a tweet early on March 9.

Born in Haryana, Kaushik was an alumnus of the NSD and the FTII and started his film career in the early 1980s. He penned the dialogues for the 1983 classic ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’, which acquired a cult following over the years. He is known for his comic roles as ‘Calendar’ in ‘Mr. India’, Pappu Pager in ‘Deewana Mastana’ and many others. Kaushik also gave sterling performances in other films like ‘Ram Lakhan’ and ‘Saajan Chale Sasural’. He directed Sridevi’s films, ‘Roop Ki Rani, Choron Ka Raja’ and later ‘Prem’, which were both disasters, but he got his big hit with ‘Hum Aapke Dil Me Rehte Hain’, ‘Tere Sang’ and many others.

Bollywood personalities paid tributes to the multifaceted artiste after learning about the news of his demise.

Taking to ‘Twitter’, Akshay shared a picture with Satish and wrote, “Chanda mama is gone. Deeply saddened to hear about Satish Kaushik Ji’s demise. Will remember him for the spontaneous laughter he brought to the sets of ‘Mr and Mrs Khiladi’. Am sure he’s already making everyone smile in heaven.”

“I know ‘death is the ultimate truth of this world!’ But I never thought in my dreams that I would write this thing about my best friend Satish Kaushik while alive. Such a sudden full stop on a friendship of 45 years! Life will never be the same without you Satish!” tweeted Anupam Kher.

“Satish, a man full of warmth, love and humour, was like a brother to me for almost 40 years. He was 12 years younger than me. Satish Ji, it was not your turn,” wrote Javed Akhtar, who shared a picture with Satish from the Holi bash on Tuesday.

Neena Gupta wrote, “I woke up with very sad news. There’s only one person in the whole world who called me Nancy and I used to call him Kaushikan. Our friendship goes back to our college days and we’ve shared a long association, whether we met often or not. He’s no more now. It’s very scary and sad. His daughter Vanshika and his wife Shashi, it’s a very difficult time for them and I’m always there for them if they ever need me. May God give them the strength to deal with this loss, especially, Vanshika.”

“I’m so shocked to hear about the demise of actor-director Satish Kaushik Ji, who was always vibrant, energetic and full of life. He will be missed immensely by the film fraternity and millions of admirers. My deepest condolences to his family members,” director Madhur Bhandarkar wrote.

“It’s just heartbreaking news that we lost our one best friend, a man who always laughed even in the worst crisis and stood by anyone in their crisis. A great artiste. A greater human being; was the greatest friend I know. He left us so suddenly and so soon,” lamented director Subhash Ghai.

Govinda, who has acted in many films with Kaushik, remembered him as a great artist: “When I look back today at all the movies that we acted in together, I feel very sad that we lost him. Every actor acts, but he was someone who would understand things and then perform. There are a lot of artists, who work in filmy ‘maahul’ but he was an actor who would make any character memorable with his sheer hard work. He would dive into that world completely and become like that character. Some so many actors play such good roles but how many characters become part of history? The characters played by Satish Kaushik are historic, they are remembered even now and will always be.”