'No hurry to die': What Satish Shah once said about Bollywood break and ageing

Veteran actor Satish Shah's demise (aged 74) on Saturday ended a TV and film career spanning four decades, as famous faces from Bollywood and beyond continue to pay their tributes to the beloved actor.

Despite acting in over 200 films and TV shows by 2017, which included famous titles like 'Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa' (1994), the first season of 'Sarabhai vs Sarabhai' (2004-06), and 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro' (1983), he famously stepped away from acting in 2014, only returning a few times since.

“I have taken, you could say, a sabbatical, and it has been rather long. I have always been the type of person who does things when I enjoy them. I think I stopped enjoying, for a while, so I thought I’ll perhaps rejuvenate myself and then start all over again. I’m in no hurry to die," Shah told News18 in a 2023 interview about his hiatus from acting and public performances.

Satish Shah's last film in 2014 was 'Humshakals', which did poorly, and is likely to have made him reflect on his film choices. Indeed, after he briefly returned to reprise his role as Indravadhan Sarabhai for the second season of 'Sarabhai vs Sarabhai' (2017), he said that he wanted to slow down his career and choose quality over quantity.

"I will be doing one or two films a year—that too, only if I like the script. Today, I am in a position to refuse films. I have given 36 years of my life to movies, so I just want to relax a bit and work at my own pace," he told PTI in 2017.

He even pointed out that he "did not enjoy" doing comedy in films as much as he had enjoyed doing comedy for TV shows.

"I was given a free hand in doing humour on TV, but cinema has so many other factors controlling things," he added.

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