Veteran actor Satish Shah has been part of many blockbuster films in his decades-old career. But it was the popular sitcom ‘Sarabhai vs Sarabhai’ which made the actor a household name. In the show, Satish played the role of Indravardhan opposite Ratna Pathak Shah’s Maya.

In a recent interview, the actor opened up on one of the major problems of Indian audiences. He said that viewers of our country don’t give space to actors when they are off-screen. They can’t differentiate between the person and the actor.

Satish recalled how once a person approached him with an insensitive request when he was in a hospital while his wife was fighting for her life. He stated, “They expect you to be funny even in a serious environment. My wife was seriously ill, she was almost dying on the operation bed. And I was very tense because we’d been married only for three months. I was sitting outside, very worried, and a guy comes to me and says, ‘Kya yaar, aap aise serious baithe ho, ache nahi lag rahe ho, koi joke-woke maaro’.”

Calling it a part of the baggage that actors carry, he said that he could’ve hit him with a ‘knockout punch’ but he just chose to walk off.

Satish Shah married Madhu Shah in 1972. He has done around 250 films to date. Satish has portrayed some of his memorable roles in films like ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain’, ‘Main Hoon Naa’, ‘Kal Ho Naa Ho’, ‘Bhootnath’, ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’, and ‘Hero No 1’.