On Saturday afternoon, Hindi cinema lost one of its most spirited and versatile artistes. But to those close to him, Satish Shah was beyond what the audience saw on screen. At 74, he was a whizz-kid, his Sarabhai vs Sarabhai family tells mid-day. Shah passed away due to kidney related issues, his manager Ramesh confirmed with mid-day. The first people in the industry to know about the actor’s demise were his collaborators on Sarabhai vs Sarabhai, the 2004 sitcom that continues to be relevant. “We were really close. All of us have been in touch with each other for all these years,” shares actor and filmmaker Deven Bhojani as he fights back tears. 

Bhojani played the eccentric Dushyant on the show that featured Shah as the family’s patriarch, Indravardhan Sarabhai. A cool husband, a cooler father and the coolest father-in-law, with his signature mischief intact. Sumeet Raghavan, who played his older son Sahil, says he was all that in real life as well. “He was the real life Indravardhan Sarabhai — a prankster. He used to pull a fast one, and I was his partner-in-crime. He would often tell me, ‘Sumeya, don’t let the child inside you die’. And he made sure that the child in him was always alive,” says Raghavan.