When a young Satish Kaushik announced to his family in Delhi that he was going to Mumbai to work in films, they were shocked. The family had no ties with Bollywood, and many of his relatives ridiculed him. He was not ‘hero’ material. He didn’t have the ‘looks’.
But his determination to make it in Bollywood is now part of family lore. “My family didn’t support him in the beginning. They were unsure if he would make it because he was ‘average looking’,” said his nephew Nishant Kaushik, who lives in Mumbai, in a conversation with ThePrint over phone. “Before he left, my uncle said, ‘If I cannot become a hero. I’ll become a joker’.”
More than four decades to that day and a year since his death on 9 March 2023, Satish Kaushik is remembered as more than just a comic actor.
At Delhi’s National School of Drama (NSD) where he studied, his batchmates were Anupam Kher, Kavita Choudhary, and Anita Kanwar. “My whole aim was to become like Mehmood or Johnny Walker. I wanted to be a comedian. With my kind of looks, I thought I’d make a good comedian. My only ambition from childhood was to be an actor and I was confident that I’d be just that,” he said in an interview in 1999, nearly two decades after starting his career in the film industry with a small role in Chakra (1981), followed by 1983 cult classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, where he also shared writing credits with Ranjit Kapoor.
Today, Kaushik is remembered for his comic roles like that of Calendar in Mr India (1985), Kashiram in Ram Lakhan(1988), Airport in Swarg (1990) and Chanda Mama in Mr. and Mrs. Khiladi (1996).
“And that is what he did. He became a comedian,” the nephew said.
But comedy is not all he did. He was an actor, director, producer, and writer who worked across various platforms—films, television, and theatre. A graduate of the NSD and Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Kaushik was a versatile artist—his love for storytelling at the helm of all his work.
Like an ‘obedient child’
One of Kaushik’s last projects was Kaagaz 2, which posthumously released on 3 March this year. The film, starring his close friend Anupam Kher, saw Kaushik take up both production and acting roles.
VK Prakash, the film director, describes his meetings with Kaushik as memorable and the filmmaking experience as “awesome”.
“He was like an obedient child despite being the visionary producer that he is. There was an instant ‘drama school’ connection between us,” Prakash told ThePrint. It speaks to Kaushik’s desire of making meaningful cinema.
One of his early stints was as an assistant director in Shekhar Kapur’s directorial debut Masoom (1983), where he also played the role of Tiwari. He worked closely with Boney and Anil Kapoor on several films, making his directorial debut with Roop ki Rani Choron Ka Raja (1993), and acted in Deewana Mastana (1996) and Woh 7 Din (1983) among others. An assistant director and actor on Mr India, he later started a production company named Karol Bagh Films and Entertainment in partnership with Anupam Kher, but it didn’t work out.
Later, he opened his own production house named Satish Kaushik Entertainment, where he worked with his nephew Nishant and his close aide Santosh Rai, with the aim of making movies inspired by stories from India’s heartland.
A Haryanvi movie under his banner, Chhoriyan Chhoron Se Kam Nahi Hoti (2019), about a woman’s struggle to become an IPS officer, won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Haryanvi. He also produced the English film, A Billion Colour Story, which won international and critical acclaim after being shown and discussed at the London Film festival, Palm Springs International Festival, and the Chandigarh Lit fest.
“He used to sit with members of the family—especially my dad—and ask them to narrate interesting events from his day, incidents with his clients,” said Nishant. The family, although not very supportive initially, had come around and even got involved and gave him advice.
Backbone of the family
Satish Kaushik grew up in a large family with five siblings. All members of the family depended on him for advice, said Nishant.
“He was very close to his daughter, Vanshika, even scared of her. She never let him go back to work in the evenings,” said Santosh Rai, who joined the family as Kaushik’s personal assistant in 1989. Having spent almost four decades with Kaushik, Rai considered him family. “I was just 17 when I joined him. They have always been there for me.”
In the public eye, too, Satish Kaushik is known to be loved and liked by all. His inner circle of friends—those he found at the NSD—Anupam Kher and Neena Gupta have still remained close.
Kher took to Instagram, on the day of their recent release Kaagaz 2’s premier, to share his love for Kaushik and his family. In a video, he spoke of his “dear friend” and the effort he put in the making of Kaagaz 2. He called the premier of the film as a “perfect and dignified goodbye” to Satish Kaushik as an artist.
(Edited by Prashant)