Satish Shah, an incomparable humourist and humanist

IF THERE WAS one dead body which brought to crackling life two hours and some of the most inspired madness and mayhem, it belonged to Commissioner D’Mello.

- SHUBHRA GUPTA

The legions of fans of Kundan Shah’s 1983 Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, a biting satire unparalleled in Hindi cinema in the way it melded savagery and hilarity, have many characters to admire. But D’Mello has a separate fan base: As the recently-deceased corrupt babu, who was happy to be swayed by a few coins and whose corpse was then dragged in a coffin all over the streets of Mumbai, Satish Shah gave the phrase “zinda laash”a new meaning.

Shah was not just one of the finest comedians in Indian cinema; he was a humourist par excellence, whose craft shone in the way he imbued even his most inane roles with surprising depth and warmth. Yes, he could slip over banana peels with ease, but he could, with equal felicity, give you a snapshot appreciation of the character about to do the slipping, and that takes serious skill. He passed away on Saturday of kidney failure. He was 74,

Of the countless roles he essayed in a career of around 50 years, the one most people will remember him for was the genial Indravadan “Indu” Sarabhai, who presided over his family and its “sukh-dukh”, with flavourful support from Maya Mazumdar Sarabhai, played by the inimitable Ratna Pathak Shah, in the long-running show, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai.