Satish Kaushik: An all-round genius

The actor with lyricist Javed Akhtar during a Holi celebration earlier this month. 

When one of Satish Kaushik’s teachers at college suggested that he should take up acting as a profession, he said he didn’t have the looks for it. “Never think like that”, said the professor, “When you are on stage, you are the most good-looking man I have ever seen.”

Satish grew up in the humble neighbourhood of Naiwala Gali, Karol Bagh, New Delhi. His father was a lock salesman and in a family of six brothers and six sisters, there were always mouths to feed. Nobody had anything to do with the movies but it was an interesting family nevertheless. When Satish sneaked out to watch Dev Anand’s 'Guide' (1965), his elder brother thrashed him while singing 'Wahan kaun hai tera/ Musafir, jaayega kahan' from the film. Even as a child, Satish was a huge fan of Mehmood, looking at the screen and muttering to himself, “I can do this too!”. It was while in Kirorimal College that the theatre bug bit him. The college had a thriving theatre society called The Players, which he became a part of. The aforementioned teacher, Professor Frank Thakurdas kindled the passion for theatre and acting in him. It was Professor Thakurdas who helped him secure an entry to the National School of Drama (NSD) where, under the tutelage of acting guru Ebrahim Alkazi, Satish learned the nuances of stage acting. Those years opened whole new vistas and completely transformed him. It was during his NSD days that he encountered a young Anupam Kher, and they became friends for life. As part of a six-month programme, he also got to study at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII).

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This exposure to NSD and then FTII instilled in him the desire of acting in films. He was now aching to go to Bombay (now Mumbai) and find work in films. But this was the 70s, and getting an entry into films wasn’t easy. Satish managed to get a job at his father’s friend Mr. Arora’s textile mills in Bombay. His job was to get the cloth pieces packed in boxes and dispatch them via train to other locations. He did this job for a whole year, while doing theatre in the evenings. Satish was a regular at the Prithvi Theatres at the time, appearing in plays and hoping that someone would notice and cast him in a film. He acted with a theatre group called Majma, which had other actors like Om Puri, Karan Razdan, Rohini Hattangadi and Ratna Pathak. When theatre exponent Nadira Babbar came to Bombay because her husband Raj Babbar had started working in films, she and Satish put together a group called Ekjut under which he did a range of plays.

Those days, ad filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar was hiring theatre actors as models for his ad films. Satish Kaushik was a model for some of these films. A friend of his named Suhas Khandke was one of the assistant directors on Rabindra Dharmaraj’s 'Chakra' (1981). It was through him that Satish bagged a walk-on role in the film. It was the first time he had actually faced the camera. Work was hard to come by, but Satish was so hungry and passionate that he took whatever assignments came his way. He worked as an assistant director on 'Aadharshila' (1982). One day when he was in Rajkamal Studio, a spotboy working with Shashi Kapoor told him that Shekhar Kapur was looking for an assistant for his directorial debut 'Masoom' (1983). Satish hounded Shekhar for days, sometimes at his office, sometimes at home, sometimes at the meetings he attended. He even chased him down to the airport one day. Impressed by his persistence, Shekhar Kapoor hired him as an assistant on 'Masoom'. Shekhar and Satish had a mutual admiration society - Satish learned a lot from Shekhar, and Shekhar attended all Satish Kaushik’s plays and was bowled over by his performances.

This was the time when Satish got to play his first iconic role, that of Ashok Namboodiripad of 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro' (1983). The scene with him and Naseeruddin Shah going round and round speaking on the phone with each other while being in the same room has gone down as one of the funniest bits ever shot in Hindi cinema. While making the film, Satish discovered the writer in him. He was the co-writer of 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro'. Next, he was assisting Shekhar on Mr. India (1987) when he was cast for the role of Calendar in the film. The role became so popular that it still threatens to overshadow everything else that this versatile artist left behind. Boney Kapoor, the producer of Mr. India was impressed by the creative inputs that Satish kept providing throughout the making of the film. This led to Satish being offered Boney’s magnum opus 'Roop ki Rani Choron Ka Raja' as his directorial debut. The film flopped and Satish was crestfallen. But this was followed by 'Prem' (1995), which was a success.

Over the next 28 years, Satish Kaushik built an enviable body of work, directing films like 'Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai', 'Tere Naam' and 'Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai', while continuing to play quirkily-named, colourful characters called Pappu Pager, Jumbo, and Airport. He had a fruitful on-screen partnership with Govinda, which would include 'Swarg', 'Sajan Chale Sasural', 'Deewana Mastana' and 'Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan'. In recent times, he was also seen playing the foul-mouthed, menacing Manu Mundra in 'Scam 1992'. While Satish Kaushik aced each one of these roles, his first love continued to be theatre. Besides many other iconic roles, he continued to play the lead in Salesman Ramlal - an adaptation of Henry Miller’s Death of a Salesman, for many years. In Shekhar Kapur’s words, Satish was “mesmerising” in his theatre roles. Because just like the good professor said so many years ago, Satish Kaushik was truly the most good-looking man on stage.