Satish Kaushik passes away at 66

Actor-writer-director Satish Kaushik passed away at the age of 66 in Gurugram on March 9. His body will be brought to Mumbai after a postmortem is conducted, The Times of India reported.

His close associate and best friend Anupam Kher took to Twitter to announce the sad news. Kher's Tweet stated, "I know 'death is the ultimate truth of this world' But I never thought in my dreams that I would write this thing about my best friend #SatishKaushik while alive. Such a sudden full stop on friendship of 45 years!! Life will NEVER be the same without you SATISH! Om Shanti!" Kher also shared a black and white photo where he and Kaushik are seen together.

Kangana Ranaut also reacted to the news and shared, "Woke up to this horrible news, he was my biggest cheerleader, a very successful actor and director #SatishKaushik ji personally was also a very kind and genuine man, I loved directing him in Emergency. He will be missed, Om Shanti."

Satish Kaushik was born on April 13, 1956. His breakout role was that of the character Calendar in Shekhar Kapur's Mr India. He had also made an impact with early releases like Jaane Bhi Do Yaro, Mandi and Woh 7 Din.

Kaushik made a transition to direction with Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja. Tere Naam and Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain are some of his popular films as director, according to The Times of India. Reacting to the actor's demise, Subhash Ghai told ETimes, "There are very few actors who are close to me in real life. People who I can call and share happy and sad moments with. Satish was one of them since the time we worked together in 'Ram Lakhan'. I met him last month. We spoke about Karan Razdan's film about the premier of that movie. Satish was very excited as usual. He was speaking about his next film, the next movie he's going to direct. He was a great artiste, whether he was on stage, on the big screen, small screen or whether he was writing. He was great at everything he did."