Birbal

Satindra Kumar Khosla, or as he is more popularly known, ‘Birbal,’ is one of Bollywood’s long-standing comic figures. His extensive work in the film industry for the larger part of three decades has made him a household name associated with comedy. Birbal was born in the town of Gurdaspur in Punjab as the eldest son of a printing press owner. His father envisioned a career for him in his little printing station, ‘Khosla Printing Press’ but Birbal’s dreams lay elsewhere.

He was an avid fan of the singer and actor, Kishore Kumar Kishore Kumar is an Indian playback singer, who ha >> Read More... , and spent his college days in Jalandhar enacting famous scenes out of movies and obsessively rewatching his favorite films. He was put to work distributing printing samples by his father in Delhi, but Birbal took his first opportunity to take a train to the city of Mumbai, where he hoped to make it big on the silver screen.

His journey was lined with struggles both to find a role in a movie and to sustain himself on his meager savings. He would frequent the backdrops of movie studios in the hopes of getting noticed. His very first role was in Raj Khosla Raj Khosla was a director in the Indian film indus >> Read More... ’s film, ‘Do Bandhan (1966),’ where he had a few seconds of screen time when Manoj Kumar Manoj Kumar was born as Harikrishna Goswami. He wa >> Read More... cast him in the role of his gullible appearance with his little Charlie Chaplin Charles Chaplin popularly known as Charlie Chaplin >> Read More... mustache. This act of his caught the eye of filmmakers who then began casting him in the role of supporting actor to deliver the occasional dialogues to provide comic relief to the movie sequence.

He made appearances in many of Bollywood’s most known films like ‘Sholay,’ ‘Boond Jo Ban GayiMoti’, and ‘Roti Kapda Aur Makaan.’ He was regularly cast by the famous producer-directors of the time, Ram Dayal Ramdayal Sharma is also known by another name, Pan >> Read More... , V. Shantaram, and Raj Khosla. It was, in fact, at their suggestion that he adopted the name Birbal to suit his funny screen persona. Birbal has carved out a niche for himself in Bollywood with his passion and wit. He has enacted in over 500 different movies spanning Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi and Bhojpuri languages. He remains an iconic personality in the industry to this day.