The character actor passed away hours after Rajpal Yadav met him at Nanavati Hospital, where he had been fighting a cancer relapse for over a week.
Mushtaq Khan died on Thursday evening, September 24, at Mumbai's Nanavati Hospital. He was 56.
The actor, a fixture of Hindi comedies for over two decades, had been admitted for close to 15 days after his cancer returned. His business partner Shivam told Aaj Tak that the relapse had happened around eight days before Khan's death and that doctors had classified it as the last stage of the disease. Khan was first diagnosed with cancer nearly five years ago and had recovered then. This time, there was no second recovery. He died at around 7 pm.
Rajpal Yadav was among the last people to see him alive.
Hours after the news broke, Rajpal posted a video from what turned out to be his final meeting with Khan, filmed that same Thursday afternoon at the hospital. In the clip, Khan is seen lying in bed, holding Rajpal's hand. "I went to meet Mushtaq bhai this afternoon. I spoke to him, he saw me and even shook hands with me," Rajpal wrote, translated from Hindi.
He added more in a separate note describing the visit, saying Khan had been alert and engaged right till the end. "He was listening to everything we were saying and reacting to our conversations as well. I still cannot believe that the person I met and shook hands with just two hours ago is no longer with us," Rajpal said.
That gap, just two hours between a hospital bedside conversation and the phone call confirming a death, is what seems to have shaken Rajpal the most. He later took the video down. By then a screengrab had already spread across social media, reposted by fan and news pages, so the moment is out there whether Rajpal wanted it archived or not.
In its place, he put up a still photo of Khan with a shorter tribute. "We all bow before the will of the Almighty. Mushtaq bhai was, is and will always remain a popular person and a beloved actor. With a deeply saddened heart, I offer my heartfelt tribute to you," he wrote.
Khan's career ran through the kind of films that get watched on loop on television reruns, the sort of comic supporting parts that don't always get remembered by name but are instantly recognisable by face. Over 56 years, he built exactly that kind of recognition.
No details on funeral arrangements or a memorial have been made public yet. Given how quickly Rajpal's video circulated and was pulled down, expect more tributes from co-stars through the day, and likely more clarity soon on when and where Khan will be laid to rest.
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