David Dhawan gets emotional as he talks to us about his friend of 50 years, actor Satish Shah, who died on October 25 due to kidney failure. He was 74.
David recalls to HT City, “You don’t even know how close we were. We passed out from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) together. Forget the number of films we did, we knew each other for 50 years! I did my editing, he did acting. This news is a shock.”
Describing him as “full of life”, David continues, “I have such great memories with him. He used to get his dialysis done from Leelavati hospital in Mumbai. If I would be shooting in Mehboob Studios, I used to ask him ‘aayega?’, he used to come and meet everyone on set! He was perfectly okay, the problem started after the kidney transplant. He was in Kolkata too for some time.”
The duo had worked together in comedy cult hits such as Hero No.1 (1997) and Saajan Chale Sasuraal (1996) As an actor, David calls Satish “superb”, “Usko yaad karke hanste the hum sab FTII wale. His friend circle was very big. We did meet in the recent times, par phone pe bahot gappe maarte the. He would keep sending me some random message or cartoons, I would ask ‘kya kar raha hai Satish!’ He had stopped working also some time back, he said ‘bahot kaam kar liya ab araam karna hai’ I said ‘meri film main shuru karunga, terko lena hai usme’ He had replied ‘haan teri wali kar lunga’.”
David holds back a sniffle, as he shares that Satish was also a good dancer, “Bahot rhythm thi Satish mein. He would obviously sing very well. Bahot qualities thi usme. Kamaal ka tha. Kya bolun… Satish.”
