In an emotional tweet after Satish Kaushik’s passing, his longtime friend and co-star Anil Kapoor wrote: ‘The Laurels of the industry have lost their Hardy’. It says a lot about Kaushik’s contribution in making us laugh and giving us some memorable screen characters over the years.
Calendar in Mr. India
‘Calendar khana lao!’ This dialogue from Shekhar Kapur’s 1987 superhit film Mr. India will probably remain iconic for anyone from a generation fortunate enough to have seen the film at the time of its release. While it sounds like something an entitled South Bombay kid would say to their house help, the dark comedy in this scene comes from the fact that the kids yelling this dialogue are orphans and Calendar — played by Satish Kaushik — is their co-caretaker with Anil Kapoor.
The sequence is a musical with remixes of older songs and has Calendar crooning the now famous line ‘Mera naam hai Calendar, main toh chala kitchen ke andar’.
In another poignant scene, Calendar laments that the kids had stopped being mischievous as they were hungry as a result of the evil machinations of the grocer, and Kaushik’s words and voice shake up the new tenant, played by Sridevi, so much that she stops berating the kids for their antics and brings them food. Kaushik shows his range of emotions and acting flair even in a primarily comedic role.
Pappu Pager in Deewana Mastana
In college, a friend of mine had the Yahoo mail ID pappu_pager16. If you wondered, like me, why that name — in David Dhawan’s Deewana Mastana, Satish Kaushik is a gangster who calls himself Pappu Pager. Kaushik’s rendition of a comical villain had shades of Crimemaster Gogo from Andaaz Apna Apna, and it was his chemistry with Govinda that really set the tone for this scene.
Professor Chasmish in Chhota Chetan
Kaushik also had a hilarious turn in the re-launched version of one of India’s first 3D movies Chota Chetan. As Professor Chasmish, Kaushik plays a modern-day ghostbuster equipped with a PC with an attached steering wheel, which he drives with a remote control car to find the location of the treasure.
In a funny sequence, Professor Chashmish gets pulled into the computer and is gobbled up by what can only be described as a Pac Man Clone. In 2023, many an IT employee would be wishing the same for their manager asking them to come back to work from office.
Ashok in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro
In Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, often considered the gold standard in Indian comedy films, there’s a hilarious sequence between Kaushik’s character Ashok and Vinod Chopra (Naseeruddin Shah) where he demands to know if Vinod is deaf. To which, the character who was otherwise unresponsive, answers “yes”.
One is forced to ask the same question of people who think comedy should be politically correct. Because at that point it just becomes political and stops being correct.
Sujan Singh in Calcutta Mail
Satish Kaushik was known to have lamented being stereotyped in comedy after his success as Calendar and other such roles. He tried to address this by taking up the negative role of a villain as an over-controlling father, Sujan Singh, in Calcutta Mail, also starring Anil Kapoor. His role also incorporated a signature move of villains wherein he would push up his glasses every time his character appeared in a new scene.
And perhaps we can all take heart from not how a journey ends but how it began.
