Titas Chowdhury (HINDUSTAN TIMES; December 21, 2019)

Veteran actors Rishi Kapoor and Satish Kaushik’s friendship dates back many summers. Four years after Wedding Pullav (2015), the duo is all set to share the screen space in Honey Trehan and Abhishek Chaubey’s production venture, where they play best friends. Kaushik reveals that Kapoor has been a loving friend. “I’ve known Chintu ji as a very straightforward person. He isn’t pretentious. He says what he feels. With me, he has always been very loving. Spending evenings with him sometimes, over drinks, is a treat and his sense of humour is amazing. He’s an absolute cinema person, much like his father, who has devoted his life to films for four decades which is incredible,” he says.

Kaushik was part of Kapoor’s directorial debut, Aa Ab Laut Chalen (1999). Talking about it, Kaushik says, “We had a ball shooting for the film in New York (USA) because Kapoors are people with king-sized hearts. Chintu ji is a cool, happy-go-lucky person, who spreads positive vibes. He really took care of his actors. To work under him was like a dream come true. But I remember him being very strict on the sets, even with Ranbir Kapoor, who was a clapper boy in the film.”

He takes us back to the time when he watched Bobby (1973) on the big screen. “I was in college when I went to watch Bobby in Delhi’s Amba Cinema. I wanted to see this good-looking and romantic star who had become a rage with his very first film,” he shares.

Kaushik says he’s glad that Kapoor has “managed to bounce back to work” after undergoing treatment for cancer in New York. He elaborates, “I never visited him there. Sometimes, in certain situations, it is better to just pray for the happiness and well-being of your loved ones when they’re in a problem and that’s what I did. He’s a fighter, and I’m happy that he’s out of all the trouble now.”