This month has cost the Hindi film industry two of its most popular and enduring comic legends — Asrani and Satish Shah. While the former, 84, died on Diwali afternoon, the latter passed away at the age of 74 due to kidney failure last Saturday. They’ve made the audience of Hindi cinema laugh to their hearts’ content for decades in countless movies.
However, there are only a few of those films where the two comic legends have shared screen space and teamed up to give their audience a double treat. Clips of one such film have been going viral ever since the consecutive tragic losses of Asrani and Satish Shah within the same week. That film is Kalptaru’s Ghar Ki Izzat, which released over three decades ago in 1994.
Based on Prosenjit Chatterjee-starrer 1990 Bengali film Bhanga Gora, Ghar Ki Izzat was co-written by Kalptaru and Keshav Rathod, with dialogues by another late comic legend, Kader Khan. He also played a prominent role in the ensemble film, which also starred Asha Parekh (in one of her last film roles), late Rishi Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Jeetendra, Gulshan Grover, Om Prakash, Shammi, and Bindu.
In fact, the YouTube video that’s going viral after Asrani and Satish Shah’s demise, titled “Joru Ke Ghulam” (henpecked husbands), have the two play subservience to Bindu’s dominating character. In the clip, as Bindu hogs on a plate of laddoos, Asrani cracks a joke on Shah, who plays Bindu’s husband, in the background. Shah asks him to keep quiet since he’s extremely scared of his wife.
As they hesitantly approach Bindu, she asks them to present their earnings of the day — Rs 99. When Shah and Asrani ask Bindu to give them food in return, she orders them to go and cook themselves, and also save some for her since she’s hungry as well. She doesn’t even offer any laddoos to them, as Asrani whispers hilariously, “Arey pet hai ki godaam” (is it her stomach or a godown).
In the next scene, Asrani and Shah are seen sitting on the floor, the former kneading the dough as the latter chops ladyfingers. Shah then pays a funny tribute to Lata Mangeshkar’s iconic song “Mohe Panghat Pe”, featuring Madhubala, from K Asif’s 1960 historical epic Mughal-e-Azam. “Mere panghat pe sabzi pakaye gayo re,” he croons. Asrani then pulls his leg and asks her to also wear a ghoonghat so that he turns into a woman completely.
Also Read — Remembering Satish Shah: Rare and unseen photos from his illustrious career
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Asrani and Satish Shah have also played small role in several other films, but have seldom shared screen space together. These include Love 86 (1986), Aag Aur Shola (1986), Commando (1988), Pratikar (1991), Baazi (1995), and most recently, Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia D’Souza-starrer 2003 romantic comedy Tujhe Meri Kasam, in which Shah played D’Souza’s father and Asrani played the school principal.
