Director Kundan Shah, whose politically perceptive yet riotously funny 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro' (1983) gathered iconic status over the years, passed aw ay after a heart attack at his Mumbai home on Saturday. Shah, who also co-directed the ground-breaking sitcom 'Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi' (1984), was 12 days short of his 70th birthday.

His work reflected an unswerving empathy for the underdog. Shah Rukh Khan playing a loser in love stands at the heart of the human comedy, 'Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa' (1994), directed and co-written by Shah. The screenplay bats for Khan despite his failings and makes the audience feel for him because he is like so many of us. After hearing of film director Kundan Shah's demise on Saturday, Shah Rukh Khan tweeted: “Oh my friend I miss you. I know u will bring smiles around wherever u are...but this world will laugh less now. RIP.“

Shah was a master of social satire, best reflected in two television serials - 'Nukkad' (1986, co-directed with Saaed Mirza, whom he once assisted) and 'Wagle Ki Duniya' (1988). 'Nukkad' humanized the urban underclass, creating characters who hang about on street corners, men and women the middle-class knows of but doesn't wish to be identified with. The drunkard (Khopdi), the beggar (Ghanshu bhikhari), the vagabond - the serial gave space to the marginalized. 'Wagle Ki Duniya', based on characters created by the peerless R K Laxman, was a wry exploration of an office clerk's everyday life where joy and woe meld seamlessly.

“He was brilliant, moody, imaginative and compassionate,“ says Sudhir Mishra, who assisted him in 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro'. “Kundan built the plot (in JBDY) around local concerns - the poor quality of building construction - as well as larger issues in high places and the decaying of idealism,“ writes Jai Arjun Singh in his book, JBDY: Seriously Funny since 1983. The movie flopped on release but has developed a devoted following since.

In his Twitter tribute, director Shekhar Kapur described the film as, “one of the greatest satires made in the history of Indian cinema“. For JBDY, Shah had received the national award for best debutant director. He returned it during the FTII student protest in in 2015.

'Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi' was a trailblazer. One of the first sponsored sitcoms on DD, its zaniness made it an un-missable, feelgood show hugely benefiting its actors, especially Satish Shah, who appeared in a new avatar in every episode. Actor Rakesh Bedi, who played a prominent character in the sitcom, recalls that he was wary of acting in a TV serial at a time when moving to the smaller screen was seen as a kind of demotion. “He was my batchmate at FTII, Pune. One evening, he came home and scolded me for refusing the role. He said TV was going to be a powerful medium and in the West, TV stars were as big as those on the big screen. He was spot on,“ recalls Bedi.

Bedi said Shah was a serious man whose work was comically-inclined. “It was hard to reconcile the two contrasting aspects of his personality. He was also a workaholic who would forget to eat lunch or the time to pack-up. On several occasions, he would tell me, Swaroop (Sampat) tu tayyar nahi hui (Aren't you ready?) I would laugh and tell him, I am Rakesh Bedi.“

Shah's later work lacked the magic of the past though 'Kya Kehna' (2000), which sympathetically dealt with pre-marital pregnancy, earned both box-office rewards and critical plaudits. 'Teen Behenein' (2005), loosely based on the real-life suicide of three sisters in Kanpur due to dowry demands, struggled for a theatrical release. Despite such setbacks, he stayed focused. “Even now there must be at least 50 scripts lying in his cupboard,“ says Mishra, adding, “Kundan Shah didn't die of a heart attack. Probably, he died of heartbreak.“

(With inputs from agencies)